Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Acetic Anhydride source for Europe

nitropyrotech - 26-6-2025 at 12:35

Hello, I just wanted to know where to get acetic anhydride from a cemical supplier in europe because I need it for RDX and HMX synthesis, I dont want to make it myself because its too expensive compared to just buying it.I know some shops like biolaboratorium.com who sells small ammounts >100ml for 5€ or so but these ammounts aint enough for me so If anyone know some other vendors it would be helpful. I personally live in germany so I can get like basically no chemicals for energetics so I need to order from neighbor countrys.

davidfetter - 26-6-2025 at 15:09

Quote: Originally posted by nitropyrotech  
Hello, I just wanted to know where to get acetic anhydride from a cemical supplier in europe because I need it for RDX and HMX synthesis,


If you intended to draw the hostile attention of policing agencies to yourself and to anyone who guides you toward the things you say you want, you have succeeded spectacularly.

nitropyrotech - 26-6-2025 at 16:58

Quote: Originally posted by davidfetter  
Quote: Originally posted by nitropyrotech  
Hello, I just wanted to know where to get acetic anhydride from a cemical supplier in europe because I need it for RDX and HMX synthesis,


If you intended to draw the hostile attention of policing agencies to yourself and to anyone who guides you toward the things you say you want, you have succeeded spectacularly.

I mean I just synthesize nitroamines myself, I have acess to acetic anhydride but it is an expensive reagent for me and I only make rdx without acetic anhydride, but I get shit yields but I dont really have any other options because acetic anhydride is expenisve asf. I always get shit yields like from 10g hexamin 2g rdx with the bachmann method without acetic anhydride. I just think that acetic anhydride is necessary for rdx

Mateo_swe - 27-6-2025 at 02:03

Have you asked any of the sellers in the "Reagents and Apparatus Acquisition" section of this site?
One of them could probably help you but you probably need to pay regular cost for it or regular cost + a little more.

zed - 28-6-2025 at 14:16

I'm in the USA. In the past, Acetic Anhydride was readily available. It was only monitored in very large volumes.

Its restriction was part of an international effort to control illicit Heroin manufacture.

Since illicit Heroin manufacture was seldom performed in the United States, rational minds prevailed, and small amounts of Acetic Anhydride could be purchased easily.

Nowadays, very many reagents are restricted, and Acetic Anhydride is one of them.

It's easy to make. You will need to build a special apparatus to produce it, AND if you screw up, you might die, but you might die anyway, since you seem to be experimenting with explosives.

In our library, there is a volume of "Vogel". As I recall, in that volume there are plans for a Ketene generator.

So... Easy-Peasey! You use common Acetone as a feedstock, to generate Ketene. You bubble the Ketene through Glacial Acetic Acid.... And Bingo! Acetic Anhydride!

The Ketene generator plans are on pages 272-273. Exact experimental conditions are elsewhere, I'll check.

Nope! I can't find what I was looking for. But.... Doug's lab is very helpful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9sPlMkYEIw

[Edited on 28-6-2025 by zed]

[Edited on 28-6-2025 by zed]

woelen - 29-6-2025 at 23:45

Another option is buying acetyl chloride and reacting that with acetic acid or sodium acetate. Details about these reactions can be found online.
With acetic acid, you get nasty HCl as by-product. This needs to be taken away by some base (an amine can do the job, e.g. triethylamine).

https://shop.es-drei.de/chloride/1299/acetylchlorid-min.-98?...

It also is available at laboratoriumdiscounter.nl, but at a higher price.

clearly_not_atara - 30-6-2025 at 17:28

I would be surprised if you actually got away with buying AcCl in Europe. It is an obvious substitute for acetic anhydride, and it has the disadvantage of being highly volatile.

Phosphoryl chloride is watched. Thionyl chloride is usually restricted due to its volatility, and it is listed under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

People have been successful buying cyanuric chloride. I believe phthaloyl chloride also works and might be available for purchase. There was also a brief period where tosyl chloride was available on the large online forest retailer.

Alternatively, acetonitrile is much less suspicious and the reaction HCl + AcOH + MeCN is known to give acetyl chloride. Acetonitrile can be distilled from refluxing acetamide with a catalyst, but this is rarely performed due to the effort involved and the ready availability of acetonitrile.

[Edited on 1-7-2025 by clearly_not_atara]

woelen - 1-7-2025 at 01:52

It really is true, you can buy acetyl chloride in the EU. I purchased it from the source, I mentioned in my previous post. There are other sources as well. And I must say, acetyl chloride certainly is not a simple substitute for acetic anhydride. it is much nastier to handle, and the HCl, formed in many reactions, may screw up things, hence my mention of adding an amine-base to take away the HCl.

For the drugs-cooks, acetyl chloride certainly is not a direct precursor to their drugs. The process of making acetic anhydride from acetyul chloride is not that difficult and a somewhat more experienced and more equipped home chemist certainly can do this, but the average cook, who just wants to mix things in cheap jars and has no real chemical knowledge cannot handle this.


[Edited on 1-7-25 by woelen]

Maui3 - 1-7-2025 at 12:35

Hi! I am from the EU and I bought acetic anhydride with no problems. It was a while ago, and I thought it was legal then. Looking back, I probably did not research the legality enough, and maybe I was just lucky? Also bought acetyl chloride from S3 Chemicals with absolutely no problem! My nitrite did not make it through though :/

But you can easily turn the acetyl chloride into acetic anhydride with sodium acetate (if I remember correctly), so I geuss acetyl chloride is still viable. Also the price is quite cheap - at least compared to where I got my acetic anhydride.

zed - 1-7-2025 at 16:15

Ummm. Here in the USA, I'm pretty sure that Acetyl Chloride is quite difficult to obtain.

But, I could be wrong. Things change. Though, it is usually for the worse.

Perhaps you could inquire with DraconicAcid. Seems to me, he is a College Chemistry Instructor.

He may have recent information on what can and cannot be easily purchased, since he has described the torture of filling out complex forms, to purchase the simplest of reagents.

Some things can be easily purchased, some things can't be purchased at all, and some things aren't worth the hassles of time and paperwork.

In my college days, we could theoretically purchase most reagents. But, the torture factor was high; long after the purchase date, delusional federal agents would lambast us with terribly sordid accusations.

It's may be easiest just to make the reagent yourself. This generally is not illegal, provided the reagent is not used to synthesize some end-product that is wildly illegal.