Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Are there borders for "hazardous material" inside EU?

teodor - 9-11-2020 at 04:59

I've got response from S3 today that they unable to deliver me "Natrium Stücke": "We can't deliver hazardous material abroad"

Hm, I was unaware about "borders" inside EU. Do you know the rules? Are they changed?


ArbuzToWoda - 9-11-2020 at 05:26

Upping this post, I'm interested too.

Tsjerk - 9-11-2020 at 05:59

My guess is that their agent for delivering hazardous materials doesn't deliver abroad. As far as I know there are no legal limitations for deliveries abroad, but I can imaging a company chooses to restrict their services because of paperwork needed to do otherwise.

outer_limits - 9-11-2020 at 06:47

Different countries may have different laws regarding hazardous materials transport.
Delivery of hazmat abroad may also require additional licenses.

Fyndium - 9-11-2020 at 07:16

It's usually because of adr, not any restrictions. Even in the new sulfuric acid ban it is stated that no separate import license or customs clearance is needed if the license is valid.

But I'm fucked if they don't deliver abroad because I was planning on ordering a lot from them.

[Edited on 9-11-2020 by Fyndium]

teodor - 9-11-2020 at 07:52

Quote: Originally posted by Fyndium  

But I'm fucked if they don't deliver abroad because I was planning on ordering a lot from them.


They do delivery abroad and they use DHL by default (but the deliver time now is MUCH longer, have no idea how COVID impacts that). It is not clear which items require special delivery (they have no special mark on them and they allow you to order them) - but I've got a refund for sodium, asked them question "why" and got the response. I asked whether are there another delivery options but didn't get the response yet. In pre-covid time I did trips to Germany on regular basis (I have relatives there) and it was possible to do just a pick-up, but not now. I planned to order sodium from Onyxmet also but now I don't know whether it will work. It strange that DHL thinks there is a border between NL and DE in terms of EU.
Also I didn't see sodium in NL shops, probably I will start to search if Onyxmet has the same problem or the delivery will be expensive. I just afraid it could be with any shop or even individual - I can order something and then it will be rejected on the "border". So that's why I like to clear my understanding about the rules.


Edit: Boom Lab (in Meppel) has 1 kg per 92 EUR, the price is nice and I would try to conpact them as a company, but I don't know whether they have this stupid "resedential address" rule. (But Meppel is 40 km from me, so there is no problems with the delivery).



[Edited on 9-11-2020 by teodor]

Tsjerk - 9-11-2020 at 08:58

in 2008 Boom had no problems delivering at my residential address. It might be a bit harder to get an account with them nowadays though.

woelen - 9-11-2020 at 11:57

Onyxmet has sodium, appr. EUR 25 for 100 grams, packaged in a metal can. They ship sodium to NL. It is very well-packaged, the can in turn is vacuum sealed in a plastic/aluminium laminate.

[Edited on 9-11-20 by woelen]

Fyndium - 9-11-2020 at 14:20

What might be sodium bulk market price?

S3 sells various stuff with huge discounts when ordering bigger amounts.

EthidiumBromide - 9-11-2020 at 14:56

Found this article about sodium imports from France to the US in the mid to late 2000s:
https://cen.acs.org/articles/86/i43/Having-Mettle-Sodium-Mar...

The article provides the following infographic

8643bus2_2a.png - 56kB

Not very recent, I know, but at least it gives a general idea of the price range of bulk sodium. Yup, it's suprisingly cheap when you buy millions of pounds/kgs.

I'm not complaining, though. One of my domestic suppliers has kilogramme lumps of sodium at roughly $65 per piece, excl. shipping. Bought 1 kg so far 3 years ago, and something tells me it may last me a life time, unless I were to go on a sodium-in-pond frenzy.

[Edited on 10-11-2020 by EthidiumBromide]

Fyndium - 11-11-2020 at 03:48

It seems that MOQ is 1 ton for sodium metal and it costs a bit over $3000 + shipping. Round that to $5k per ton, hence 5$ a kg would be about the minimum price one could order it in even remotely reasonable quantities. This instance being that it is bought for resale.

When I was at elemental school (pun), I was fascinated by the idea of throwing sodium into a pond. After that, I was only fascinated by it's chemical properties. I don't know, maybe I've became old, but I find recrystallization, precipitation and even basic things like vacuum distillations more fascinating than explosions and fire. I'm much more like "why waste good reagents by burning or blowing them up?"

[Edited on 11-11-2020 by Fyndium]

teodor - 11-11-2020 at 04:29

I've got the answer form S3 about my question for different shipping method: "sorry, we have no option to ship this article outside Germany (unless you want to pay for a transport on EPAL for several 100€)".

Fyndium - 11-11-2020 at 15:15

You could ask Mario for an offer. Order something else you need alongside and keep up the good guy's work.

The S3 apparently does not ship some hazardous materials abroad. There can also be restrictions on package size for shipping due to ADR regulations. One other german shop packaged everything in separate, small containers because one large container would have needed to be put in higher ADR class.

mackolol - 12-11-2020 at 11:34

Quote: Originally posted by teodor  
I've got response from S3 today that they unable to deliver me "Natrium Stücke": "We can't deliver hazardous material abroad"

Hm, I was unaware about "borders" inside EU. Do you know the rules? Are they changed?


I think it's more to the company itself, than to laws. Maybe they don't have the permission, you must have it to ship hazardous chemicals as far as I'm concerned.
Maybe they don't have the ability, It's not that easy to ship sodium for 100's of kilometers, with extra caution not to break it somehow.

Fyndium - 12-11-2020 at 12:23

Meanwhile, I just realized I have ordered sodium metal multiple times from eBay and it just came in a small letter parcel. There appears to be sellers in eBay currently, 500g commandeers a 133€ price tag incl worldwide shipping.

EthidiumBromide - 12-11-2020 at 17:02

^ I think I know which seller you are talking about. I happened to buy potassium metal from them. I can highly recommend their services, especially if you have no other way of getting metals like Li, Na, K, Ba, Ce, etc. The product is declared as "metal sample for educational purposes" or something along those lines, which hopefully will keep any issues with customs at bay.