Sciencemadness Discussion Board

fluoride from toothpaste?

BenZeen - 18-3-2010 at 04:10

Is there a way to liberate the flouride anions from toothpaste? perhaps to make calcium fluoride or some other compound, just for kicks :D

woelen - 18-3-2010 at 05:23

This is not worth the effort. Common toothpastes have at most a few tenths of percent of fluoride in them and frequently, a considerable part of this fluoride also is contained in some fluorophosphate complex. Common toothpastes contain tens of other chemicals, all intimately mixed, some being soluble, others being insoluble, so separating the small quantity of fluoride is not feasible at all. From e.g. a 100 ml tube of toothpaste you only obtain let's say 0.1 gram of NaF if your separation procedure is very good.

Melgar - 29-3-2010 at 23:19

Yeah, you're way better off getting fluoride from fluorspar/fluorite rock if you actually want it for anything. A lot of cheap jewelry is made from it, so it shouldn't be hard to find.

entropy51 - 30-3-2010 at 06:14

Some insecticides (roach powder) contain quite a lot of NaF. Here is a list of some of them. I once found one of them, but I don't know how easy they are to find nowadays.

halogenstruck - 2-4-2010 at 10:08

colgate toothpaste has 0.76% and 130ml
roughly 1.48gr sodium monofluorophosphate.
i assume first dry and then roast it at 400`c
most of organic detergents and soaps,essences,bactericides will decompose
the rest mainly consist of SiO2,Na2FPO3,maybe C from organic source.
i suppose then u better to extract F anion by digestion in HNO3 solution.following neutralization then precipitation by Ca ion.

Sodium Fluoride from Toothpaste

elementcollector1 - 11-4-2012 at 18:42

Is there a reliable method to extract sodium fluoride from toothpaste? I'd like to use this for an easy synth of large quantities of calcium fluoride. I tried dissolving the toothpaste in water by mixing it thoroughly, but now I cannot get the other stuff out and a white precipitate keeps forming upon standing.

Polverone - 11-4-2012 at 19:36

Quote: Originally posted by elementcollector1  
Is there a reliable method to extract sodium fluoride from toothpaste? I'd like to use this for an easy synth of large quantities of calcium fluoride. I tried dissolving the toothpaste in water by mixing it thoroughly, but now I cannot get the other stuff out and a white precipitate keeps forming upon standing.


No. There is little fluoride available from toothpaste so you are never going to make large quantities of calcium fluoride from it. If you are in the United States, Whink brand rust remover is dilute hydrofluoric acid and can easily be used to prepare calcium fluoride. Some commercial cleaning products contain ammonium hydrogen fluoride and can be used similarly. Neither of these sources is great if you really need large quantities of calcium fluoride; consider buying it directly from a supplier of pottery materials.

Mailinmypocket - 11-4-2012 at 19:39

I imagine it would be difficult to separate the sodium fluoride, for a couple reasons. Per unit of toothpaste there isn't that much sodium fluoride, something like 0.043%(or 0.43, don't remember). That means for every 100ml of paste you would get less than a half gram(at best), if I am not mistaken.

If you still wanted to do it then the first step would be to take out any insoluble ingredients like pumice etc by filtering with a very fine filter. After that is done the problem would be to remove the other ingredients like flavoring, emulsifiers, surfactants and other things like maybe dyes and "extras" like triclosan. Many of these indredients will cause you to end up with a sticky goop/oil instead of a crystalline sample of sodium fluoride.

Have you considered checking eBay or other sites for fluorspar or fluorite? It's calcium fluoride in mineral form which may suit your needs, also quite cheap!


[Edited on 12-4-2012 by Mailinmypocket]

elementcollector1 - 11-4-2012 at 21:02

Yeah, I'll address these in order:
Hydrofluoric acid is not something I'd like to encounter, so I wanted to avoid it if possible. Thanks anyway.
I'll remember the brand name if it comes up again, thanks.
I didn't want to sacrifice my lump of fluorite to my pyrotechnic hobby, but... okay.
The nearest pottery shop is a pain to go to, so if I had a reliable way to make the stuff at home, I'd settle for that. We'll see.
Thanks for all the comments!

Hexavalent - 12-4-2012 at 01:18

I concur wth everybody else. Yes, I imagine it is possible to get the fluoride salt out of toothpaste, but it demands a lot of work and you *will* only get a very small amount of product per volume of toothpaste used initially.

The 3% hydrofluoric acid sold in the US is fairly safe to handle as long as you wear goggles, gloves, protective clothing and maybe work in a fumehood and wear a little respirator. Here in the UK, we have no such access to such materials and you should take advantage of what you have available. . . perhpaps in a few years you will desperately need some and the product will have been discontinued. If you're really paranoid, then get yourself some calcium gluconate gel or powder . . .a thread exists somewhere that lists sources for it. Also make sure to have the hospital on speed dial;)

If you live in the US, then why not go to somewhere like Seattle Pottery Supplies online? Such sources exist very readily for most people, even here in the UK:) Just do a bit of background research on what NaF is actually used for, and ask for it for that purpose. From what I've heard and seen, Seattle Pottery offer very good selections of products at good prices and the chemicals are often surprisingly pure.

Here is a link to their site;

http://www.seattlepotterysupply.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?


It's also, interestingly, the only place I've found that sell many interesting exotic compounds, including those of chromium, neodymium, zirconium and silicon!

elementcollector1 - 12-4-2012 at 15:24

I visited SPS (I live 30 minutes away), and they were remarkably out of stock of pretty much any inorganic chemical from the following:
Zircon
Manganese Carbonate (bought)
Copper Sulfate (small packets)

I'll try again in a few weeks, but I'm not too hopeful. If they did have everything in stock, that would be like a freaking CANDY STORE for me. XD

Antiswat - 5-3-2017 at 03:20

there is a lot of industrial waste fluoride from welding - stickwelding and flux core welding, flux core would tend to almost fall off by itself, where stickwelding will leave a glassy slag that will have to be hammered off, no idea how much fluoride is actually left in the slag, but it has decent density and with luck you can find it in in kg's wherever they use those types of welding, it would supposedly be as easy as to react with sulfuric acid, producing nefariously toxic fluoride (which as accumulative poison should be kept to an total minimum of exposure, lethal dosis is not the main danger with such poison)
otherwise stick electrodes could be bought and the ceramic sorrounding the steel core should contain fluoride, i have come across barium and lithium fluorides, in a patent up to 100% of this white ceramic sorrounding the steel core, but most likely mainly calcium fluoride

i would again stress the danger of volatile forms of fluorine, hydrogen fluoride hereunder

another more OTC source would be difluoroethane from "canned air" it produces hydrogen fluoride under combustion

im okay with reviving this old thread, not having luck with finding any interest regarding fluoride from welding electrodes or slag, i do mean to say that one can find sodium fluoride sold for soldering, flux, although boric acid is oftenly the standard

phlogiston - 5-3-2017 at 13:06

A OTC source for fluorine atoms is teflon.
The problem will be how to prepare useful fluorine compounds form it.

Supposedly, sodium metal reacts with teflon to yield NaF.
Also, I've read teflon dissolves in molten sodium hydroxide when it is hot enough.

It is well know to react with magnesium metal in very exothermic reaction. This mixture is used in IR decoy flares.
Magnesium fluoride is one of the products.

PirateDocBrown - 6-3-2017 at 07:39

5 pounds of powdered fluorspar from Seattle Pottery is $5.75, plus shipping.

http://www.seattlepotterysupply.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?S...