Ethyl acetoacetate will be reacting with trans-chalcone with 25 mLethanol and a pellet of NaOH under reflux for an hour. Then it willbe crystallized with water and chilled on an ice bath for 30minutes and then vacuum filtered. After this a "removal of the catalyst" step was performed. this involved adding 7mL reagentgrade acetone . the question is Why was it possible to separate the product from NaOH using acetone?