Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Where to get DCM?

Jacob42 - 10-7-2023 at 21:58

I’ve checked Etsy, eBay, Amazon, etc no results. Also checked labdirect but they’re dead. Anyone else know a source (residential—no Ligma Aldrich recs)?

j_sum1 - 10-7-2023 at 23:36

I always get mine by distilling paint stripper. But I know that is not an option in many parts of the world.
Where are you located?

If it is a restricted chemical in your region, you may just need to go through a chemical supply company and complete whatever paperwork is required. If that is not an option, you really want to consider whether it is worth getting offside with LEO by possessing substances that are considered forbidden (for whatever reason).

An alternative may be to make your own chloroform which can be substituted for DCM in many situations.

B(a)P - 11-7-2023 at 03:58

On the off chance you are in Australia I get mine from Sydney Solvents
You could also try a commercial cleaning supply company.

Sulaiman - 11-7-2023 at 06:59

Easier to answer if your location is known,
eg DCM is generally restricted in many countries (eg uk)
and freely available in others
(eg here I can buy 20l for equivalent usd40 incl. delivery via home shopping sites)
If in usa identifying your state may help with locating OTC supplies etc.

Lion850 - 14-7-2023 at 19:17

I you happen to be able to visit Brisbane I have some to spare

yobbo II - 15-7-2023 at 12:25


In. Uk you can get professional paint stripper in car excessafyy shop

Yob

Raid - 17-7-2023 at 09:34

In the US its a bit harder to find paint stripper that contains Methylene Chloride...
But Amazon is selling a gallon for $60 if anyone is looking for any.

Lionel Spanner - 17-7-2023 at 14:47

If you're based anywhere near Europe, Laboratorium Discounter (based in the Netherlands) sell it at very reasonable prices.

alking - 17-7-2023 at 17:26

I can't find it in the US anymore, the EPA banned it a few months ago. Used to be able to buy it on Amazon.

charley1957 - 18-7-2023 at 08:50

https://www.laballey.com/products/dichloromethane-methylene-...

Texium - 18-7-2023 at 09:03

Quote: Originally posted by charley1957  
https://www.laballey.com/products/dichloromethane-methylene-...
Pricey as all hell!

pantone159 - 18-7-2023 at 09:26

https://www.laballey.com/products/dichloromethane-methylene-...

I suppose 4L of HPLC grade won't be the cheapest. The same store has the link above for 0.5 liters of ACS grade for $50, and 'lab grade' is $44.

I have not used this supplier, fwiw, just noting a lower price option.

charley1957 - 19-7-2023 at 08:41

https://www.flinnsci.com/globalassets/flinn-scientific/all-p... Not so pricey. Oops, didn’t see that part at the bottom. Can only be shipped to schools, etc.

[Edited on Jul07-19-2023 by charley1957]

charley1957 - 19-7-2023 at 08:48

https://www.epa.gov/chemicals-under-tsca/epa-finds-methylene... Our tax dollars at work, steadily eroding our ability to do home science.

ChemGlass - 22-7-2023 at 04:21

Go to my Etsy shop: Synthetika Chemicals

I have DCM for sale. ACS grade and pretty competitively priced. I just added ACS ether, ACS DCM, tosyl chloride, 48% HBr, ACS glacial acetic acid to my Etsy, which has very good shop reviews and I get a lot of return customers. I have a bunch of new chemicals I'm going to add to my Etsy shop as well as my website (which needs a little updating).

My personal website, Synthetikachemicals.com, only has about 20 chemicals on there but I have another 20 I'm going to add soon.

ChemGlass - 22-7-2023 at 04:29

Oh, and I have Red-Al listed as well.

I'm sure there's some people on SciMad who can vouch for my company. I just moved to a new warehouse and been pretty busy moving fume hoods and a lot of bulky/heavy pieces of equipment so I haven't had time to completely update my Etsy and personal website, which both need updated bottle images and chemicals added. I'll have some time this weekend to do this. You can see some of my chemicals listed when using Google Shopping too, so maybe you've seen the name once or twice when on Google.

DCM is available on my Etsy though.

Dr.Bob - 25-7-2023 at 15:50

If you are in NC, I know a guy...

Rainwater - 25-7-2023 at 16:17

I wonder if theres a way to synthesis it easily. Wiki says 500c + methanol + HCl.
But with the possibility of making phosgene, i think ill let someone who actually knows what their doing handle this one.

Texium - 25-7-2023 at 16:42

Quote: Originally posted by Rainwater  
I wonder if theres a way to synthesis it easily.
Nope. The other major industrial way is free-radical chlorination of methane, but that’s not selective and produces a mixture of chloromethane, DCM, chloroform, and carbon tet.

unionised - 25-7-2023 at 23:58

Quote: Originally posted by charley1957  
https://www.epa.gov/chemicals-under-tsca/epa-finds-methylene... Our tax dollars at work, steadily eroding our ability to do home science.

It's probably got more to do with avoiding deaths; but you can think it's about hobbyists if you like.

unionised - 25-7-2023 at 23:59

Quote: Originally posted by yobbo II  

In. Uk you can get professional paint stripper in car excessafyy shop

Yob

What shops?

Rainwater - 26-7-2023 at 01:44

Quote: Originally posted by Texium  
produces a mixture of chloromethane, DCM, chloroform, and carbon tet.

No Phosgene risk?
All but the CH3Cl seam like common and useful solvents. i see them mentioned in a lot of literature

charley1957 - 26-7-2023 at 05:31

@unionised, I think it’s more about the nanny state once again thinking they can protect us better than we can protect ourselves. Let’s ban it from everybody because a few idiots injured or killed themselves using the stuff. More people killed by baseball bats and bricks than ever died by DCM I would suspect, but I don’t see these items ever being banned.

Texium - 26-7-2023 at 07:23

Quote: Originally posted by charley1957  
@unionised, I think it’s more about the nanny state once again thinking they can protect us better than we can protect ourselves. Let’s ban it from everybody because a few idiots injured or killed themselves using the stuff. More people killed by baseball bats and bricks than ever died by DCM I would suspect, but I don’t see these items ever being banned.
Nice whataboutism. It's not just about people who die. DCM's toxicity is nothing to scoff at. See here what happens when a minuscule amount was accidentally injected into a student's finger. It ain't pretty. That doesn't happen when someone mishandles a baseball bat or a brick.

Daily exposure to baseball bats also doesn't increase your chances of cancer and liver failure. On the other hand, people who are exposed to DCM fumes occupationally are at a higher risk of health problems later on, may not be aware of it, and may not have much choice in the matter if it's just what their employer gives them to work with. Plus there are much safer and more effective paint stripper formulas, some of which may make other interesting solvents like dimethyl carbonate more accessible to us. If there is a solution that is safer and equally if not more effective, why shouldn't industry be pressured to adopt it?

Moreover, nobody is saying you aren't allowed to own DCM, and you can still buy it, it'll just probably be more expensive since it is only sold for more specialty, niche uses. You won't have to worry about separating it from methanol anymore though. Could even be worth the extra cost depending on your money:time ratio.

Personally, I am more disappointed by the apparent disappearance of good, pure, not appreciably toxic solvents like ethyl acetate (itself "MEK substitute"), toluene, and xylene from hardware store shelves in favor of a catch-all "Painter's Solvent," a useless cocktail of acetone, methyl acetate, and petroleum distillates. But that has nothing to do with law changes, and certainly nothing to do with stickin' it to us poor home chemists. Just the good ol' free market in action... The average Joe prefers things to be simple rather than having 20 different specialty paint thinners and cleaning solvents to choose from.

[Edited on 7-26-2023 by Texium]

unionised - 26-7-2023 at 12:38

Quote: Originally posted by charley1957  
I think it’s more about the nanny state once again thinking they can protect us better than we can protect ourselves.

One death is enough to show that "we can't protect ourselves".

Is your enthusiasm for home chemistry enough to justify that death to the next of kin?
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/05/16/methyle...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/decorator-ki...

charley1957 - 26-7-2023 at 14:15

Hey, y’all are preaching to the choir. I remember in the Navy washing engine parts and cleaning up engine blocks aboard ship using trichlorethane and carbon tetrachloride. I’m just lamenting the fact that the government just always seems to be in everybody’s business. Yeah, i get that it probably has to be that way sometimes. It’s just that it seems more and more to be intrusive into every facet of our lives. Maybe I just yearn for a much simpler time in life when things weren’t so regulated, so many rules. I do remember such a time. I just see our way of life becoming more like a European state with more restrictions and regulations than we have. And where does it end? But we still have tens of thousands of deaths and many more than that horrible injuries on our public roads. But those are the sacrifices we make as a society for all the good that transportation does for us. And that goes on for years unending. Just ranting, that's all.

Texium - 27-7-2023 at 06:44

Quote: Originally posted by charley1957  
But we still have tens of thousands of deaths and many more than that horrible injuries on our public roads. But those are the sacrifices we make as a society for all the good that transportation does for us. And that goes on for years unending. Just ranting, that's all.
Sorry, but your rant touched on a topic I’m passionate about and now I have to rant too.

I’m not going to argue that European countries are perfect, but the rate of automotive injuries and deaths in the US isn’t an inevitable sacrifice that we just have to accept. Europe and Japan have clearly demonstrated that access to fast, affordable, and efficient public transportation reduces traffic, and by association, traffic accidents. The US has 12.9 traffic fatalities per 100,000 people each year. The UK has 2.9. France, 5.0. Sweden, 2.2. Spain, 3.7. Germany, 3.7. Italy, 5.2. Japan, 4.1. You get the picture. You can’t look at those numbers and say we’re not doing something wrong.

If we would invest in a high speed rail network for cross-country travel and expand commuter and light rail networks within urban and suburban areas, we could take hundreds of thousands of cars off the road, and correspondingly save 20,000+ lives each year. And if you like driving, or have no choice but to drive, it benefits you too! You’ll have less traffic to deal with and be less likely to get into an accident.

Edit- my source for those above numbers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic...

[Edited on 7-27-2023 by Texium]

Dr.Bob - 27-7-2023 at 09:33

The challenge is that most European and Asian countries have much denser populations, thus mass transit works better, they also regulated building much tighter (most have been doing that for centuries, whereas the US is still an infant compared to them.) So the people live in small communities, close together, and most jobs are near the centers of towns. Whereas in the US, many towns separate residential and industrial areas, and many people live in suburbs that are spread out (see LA, Dallas, or now even RTP, NC) for towns that are 50 miles across, have multiple roads in every direction, and many people choose to live far from work.

There is almost no way to make mass transit work here, as no two people have the same commute, and few people live close to a major road. I used to ride the bus to work some, but then the bus stops further from home, changes downtown, and now does not stop by my work place, I would need to change yet again to get there. So a 15 min drive would then be a 1+ hour ride. And I live close to work, but the bright people here decided to have a research park with no residential spaces nearby (on purpose). Now they are finally changing that, and maybe in 20 years we will have more residential places near where people work, but it is only starting to happen now.

Tsjerk - 27-7-2023 at 10:28

I'm sure you can't only account the difference in deaths per capita to the use of public transport. I had a quick look at the numbers and found the average kilometers traveled by car differs approximately a factor two between European countries and the USA. That wouldn't explain the difference in numbers Texium is stating.

What also accounts I think is the safety of the roads in Europe compared to those in the USA. For example in the Netherlands we have cameras everywhere monitoring traffic jams, and warning incoming traffic for those jams. When there is a car standing still on a highway, the lane and the next are closed immediately.

I already see a difference when driving into Belgium, the roads are worse as is the safety. Driving into Wallonie makes the difference even more pronounced. Deaths per 100.000: 3.1 vs. 5.4 Netherlands vs. Belgium. The differences I see are mostly about how clear it is for me where I'm supposed to drive and how much overview I have over traffic.

Edit: I just had a look at the numbers for Germany, as I also regularly drive over there. Around 4, as Texium stated. Sounds in order with my gut feeling; not as save as the Netherlands, but a lot better than Belgium.

I just remember a video I once saw from the USA. Minutes and minutes of high speed collisions on a highway because of one silly accident. That would never happen in the Netherlands.

[Edited on 27-7-2023 by Tsjerk]

charley1957 - 28-7-2023 at 07:39

So back to DCM. Yes, you are still able to get it, albeit at a higher price than before, and there’s no law against having it. Iodine was once easy to get and have, now we’re limited to purchase 250g per year. And the prices are much higher than they were. Some veterinarians were caught selling thousands of pounds of the stuff to meth cooks, so now all the rules. I just wonder when we will get limitations in the US on things like nitric and sulfuric acid, as there are in some European countries. After reading some posts in this forum about that, I bought a keg (about 25 gal.) of 98% sulfuric acid, hopefully enough to last the rest of my life. About $68. I’ve found myself buying other chemicals in much larger volumes than I really need also. I hate to think of myself as a chemical hoarder, but here I am. There is just no telling which chemical(s) are next on the list of things that will be restricted and subsequently higher priced. Rant over.