Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Source of potassium permanganate in Eastern Europe

CobaltChloride - 10-3-2018 at 11:27

Hi! Does anybody know a product commonly sold in Eastern Europe that contains KMnO4 (something among the lines of the Pot Perm form USA) and at what kind of store it could be bought? At least in my country it is no longer present in pharmacies as it is considered a "drug precursor".

WouldSynthesizeForFood - 10-3-2018 at 11:39

Maybe somewhere in Belarus it's still sold with less restrictions. At least here in Ukraine KMnO4 is on the list of controlled substances.

Edit: Maybe for your particular reaction there is a replacement oxidizer?

[Edited on 10-3-2018 by WouldSynthesizeForFood]

[Edited on 10-3-2018 by WouldSynthesizeForFood]

aga - 10-3-2018 at 11:52

Poland - a country to the East of Germany, borders to the East with Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.

You can get it from the UK too, on Ebay.

CobaltChloride - 10-3-2018 at 13:08

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
Poland - a country to the East of Germany, borders to the East with Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.

You can get it from the UK too, on Ebay.


Yeah, but I'm not polish. I would prefer to buy it from my country as I am too afraid to order it online from another country. (Just asking a pharmacist if they still have it made them very suspicious)

All I could find was a really expensive 1N solution.

btw I am from Romania.

[Edited on 10-3-2018 by CobaltChloride]

[Edited on 10-3-2018 by CobaltChloride]

aga - 10-3-2018 at 13:10

Che Vaj ? Boooooonah !

http://www.chemagility.com/directory/country.asp?CountryID=1...

CobaltChloride - 10-3-2018 at 13:11

Quote: Originally posted by WouldSynthesizeForFood  
Maybe somewhere in Belarus it's still sold with less restrictions. At least here in Ukraine KMnO4 is on the list of controlled substances.

Edit: Maybe for your particular reaction there is a replacement oxidizer?

[Edited on 10-3-2018 by WouldSynthesizeForFood]

[Edited on 10-3-2018 by WouldSynthesizeForFood]


Only dichromates would also work, but I don't like handling such carcinogenic substances. I think that finding MnSO4 at a reasonable price could also suffice as I can oxidize that to permanganate with sodium persulfate with silver nitrate catalyst.

CobaltChloride - 10-3-2018 at 13:13

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
Che Vaj ? Boooooonah !

http://www.chemagility.com/directory/country.asp?CountryID=1...


nice attempt, but it is more like che fachi. Most of those companies don't sell to individuals anyway.

[Edited on 10-3-2018 by CobaltChloride]

aga - 10-3-2018 at 13:25

Strange.

I imagined the response would be 'Beeeneh'.

Funny how being drunk can make things clear at times.

LearnedAmateur - 11-3-2018 at 03:04

Dichromate is really only carcinogenic if you decide to eat some or otherwise ingest it, you can look at a list of dangers for chemicals but these are just possibilities. Unrelated to an extent, I bought some caffeine powder from a chem house since it was the only source available to me and it had a warning that it was ‘harmful if swallowed’, which it obviously isn’t since many people consume it daily.

We used to use dichromate extensively for organic oxidations in school because of the colour change associated with the reaction, if it was massively dangerous then it wouldn’t be allowed for students to use. Gloves and a mask will protect you just fine even if it’s a little excessive, and don’t suck your fingers afterwards; long story short, you won’t get cancer if you treat it like any other chemical in your lab, there are far more dangerous substances you’ll come into contact with during the course of experimentation.

j_sum1 - 11-3-2018 at 03:49

Quote: Originally posted by CobaltChloride  

I think that finding MnSO4 at a reasonable price could also suffice as I can oxidize that to permanganate with sodium persulfate with silver nitrate catalyst.

Do you have a procedure for this? I am not aware of any home chemists who have successfully synthesised KMnO4. I have easy access to MnSO4, Na2S2O8 and silver nitrate is not too difficult either. OTOH, KMnO4 is easily available where I live but not especially cheap.

Tsjerk - 11-3-2018 at 06:14

Depending how much I have left and how much you need I could send you some. I think I can spare a couple hundred grams, I have to check but I think it is technical quality..

I'm pretty sure I also have Na2S and a 250 ml Erlenmeyer.

Do you have some interesting stuff to swap? I don't need sodium metal.

DavidJR - 11-3-2018 at 06:20

Quote: Originally posted by LearnedAmateur  
Unrelated to an extent, I bought some caffeine powder from a chem house since it was the only source available to me and it had a warning that it was ‘harmful if swallowed’, which it obviously isn’t since many people consume it daily.


Try eating 10g of your pure caffeine powder and then tell me it's not harmful if swallowed...

CobaltChloride - 11-3-2018 at 07:58

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1  
Quote: Originally posted by CobaltChloride  

I think that finding MnSO4 at a reasonable price could also suffice as I can oxidize that to permanganate with sodium persulfate with silver nitrate catalyst.

Do you have a procedure for this? I am not aware of any home chemists who have successfully synthesised KMnO4. I have easy access to MnSO4, Na2S2O8 and silver nitrate is not too difficult either. OTOH, KMnO4 is easily available where I live but not especially cheap.

There is a video on YouTube on this https://youtu.be/xNBNpBhBVM4
I know woelen explains it as well on his website, but I can't seem to find the exact page on this.

[Edited on 11-3-2018 by CobaltChloride]

CobaltChloride - 11-3-2018 at 08:09

Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk  
Depending how much I have left and how much you need I could send you some. I think I can spare a couple hundred grams, I have to check but I think it is technical quality..

I'm pretty sure I also have Na2S and a 250 ml Erlenmeyer.

Do you have some interesting stuff to swap? I don't need sodium metal.

Well I don't have very exotic reagents. I have some analytical grade ammonium nitrate, potassium hydroxide, diethyl ether, barium chloride. I also have technical grade trisodium phosphate. Everything else I have is pretty otc (50% hydrogen peroxide, concentrated sulfuric acid etc. ) or is easily made (nitric acid etc.) . I could buy some exotic reagents from a chemistry shop in my country if you'd like to swap for the sodium sulfide at least (that's the one I want the most).

RawWork - 11-3-2018 at 08:12

There is potassium pormanganate crystals in every pharmacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Comes in i think 50 or 100 ml brown glass bottle. I bought it when i was underage 5 years ago. Until I decided to stop wasting money on chemistry, and try to earn it that way instead.

ninhydric1 - 11-3-2018 at 08:19

50% H2O2?!
Where did you get that?

CobaltChloride - 11-3-2018 at 08:37

Quote: Originally posted by ninhydric1  
50% H2O2?!
Where did you get that?

From the chemistry shop I was talking about in my earlier post. It sells a lot of nice reagents, even potassium tetraiodomercurate for example. But some normally otc reagents aren't in their catalogue, such as cheap hydrochloric acid or potassium permanganate more concentrated than 1N.

[Edited on 11-3-2018 by CobaltChloride]

CobaltChloride - 11-3-2018 at 08:38

Quote: Originally posted by RawWork  
There is potassium pormanganate crystals in every pharmacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Comes in i think 50 or 100 ml brown glass bottle. I bought it when i was underage 5 years ago. Until I decided to stop wasting money on chemistry, and try to earn it that way instead.

It isn't this way in Romania anymore. It is no longer sold in pharmacies.

LearnedAmateur - 11-3-2018 at 13:44

It might be worth your effort to enquire as to whether they can source some potassium permanganate for you - there are a whole plethora of uses for it, including as an antiseptic, fungicide, treatment for various skin conditions, as a survival tool - starting fires using glycerin/ethanediol and water, water purifier/disinfectant, and to mark snow if you get lost. It can also be used to disinfect aquariums for sensitive fish, as a nutrient for growing vegetables, and to treat disease in your garden.

It is such a useful chemical that banning it for the sake of curbing drug manufacture is utterly insane! It would be like banning diethyl ether, hydrogen peroxide, ammonium nitrate, and even water just because they can be used for illicit purposes even though there are far more numerable legitimate and totally legal uses. Good luck on your quest to source some.

CobaltChloride - 12-3-2018 at 08:25

Quote: Originally posted by LearnedAmateur  
It might be worth your effort to enquire as to whether they can source some potassium permanganate for you - there are a whole plethora of uses for it, including as an antiseptic, fungicide, treatment for various skin conditions, as a survival tool - starting fires using glycerin/ethanediol and water, water purifier/disinfectant, and to mark snow if you get lost. It can also be used to disinfect aquariums for sensitive fish, as a nutrient for growing vegetables, and to treat disease in your garden.

It is such a useful chemical that banning it for the sake of curbing drug manufacture is utterly insane! It would be like banning diethyl ether, hydrogen peroxide, ammonium nitrate, and even water just because they can be used for illicit purposes even though there are far more numerable legitimate and totally legal uses. Good luck on your quest to source some.

Thank you! Even my grandma thinks it's insane to ban it. She used it for disinfecting fruits, but now she can't.