LanthanumK
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Arsenic extraction, toxicity, and legal problems
I am attempting to extract several elements from lead wheel weights. After dissolving the lead by H2O2/HAc mixture, the rest of the elements that did
not dissolve were oxidized with HCl/H2O2 mixture. The HCl/H2O2 was decanted off and the white oxide mixture dissolved in excess HCl. A little residual
oxide that does not dissolve in HCl was produced, behaving much like arsenic pentoxide. (Wheel weights typically contain between 0.08-0.14% arsenic.)
How dangerous (other than the large amounts of lead waste) would it be to try to extract a significant amount of pure arsenic pentoxide from a number
of wheel weights using only wet chemistry? Would there be any legal implications in the United States? So far I have about 10 mg of As2O5, which I do
not think is very dangerous.
[Edited on 23-12-2011 by LanthanumK]
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blogfast25
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Short answer: DON'T do it! There are various threads on this board on arsenic recovery: read them, then decide that's it's not worth risking your
health/life for. Very small quantities are of course safer but ask yourself whether after the mg quantities you'll be tempted to scale up?
[Edited on 23-12-2011 by blogfast25]
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neptunium
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i thought about it too my friend, but i was gonna start with orpiment or realgar . As2O5 is far more toxic than As alone ..
if elemental Arsenic is your goal i wouldnt go with wheel weights ..
although its toxicity is often exagerated , make no mistake 0.2 g of As2O5 will put anyone in a pine box within 24 hours if fully absorbed all at
once.
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LanthanumK
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Where would the arsenic sulfides be obtained from?
I heard that reduction of arsenic acid (arsenic pentoxide solution in water) by magnesium results in some elemental arsenic, along with some arsine.
This might be a reaction to do outside, but I don't think that I will perform it because of the AsH3
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woelen
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Arsenic compounds are relatively easy to find on eBay. You can buy realgar (As4S4) and orpiment (As2S3??) and arsenopyrite (FeAsS). The latter is
cheapest, and realgar is most expensive. The arsenopyrite is amazingly pure crystalline material of natural origin and if you buy a sample of that you
buy an almost pure chemical. Samples of realgar and orpiment can be pure, but frequently they are so-called matrix samples, with realgar or orpiment
on a quartz or other stone substrate. Try to find the pure samples.
But as others already wrote, be VERY careful with arsenic and its compounds and try to find wet methods for extracting arsenic (e.g. oxidizing the
stuff with concentrated nitric acid and then trying to reduce the thus formed arsenates to elemental arsenic). I never would heat or burn arsenic
compounds in an amateur/home setting. That is playing with your (and other's) health in a totally irresponsible way! Another warning applies here. Wet
methods for extracting elemental arsenic are not easy at all. It is fairly easy to get a solution of arsenate, but making a nice sample of elemental
arsenic from this is hard, very hard. I have tried myself already a few times and either you obtain an impure material, or the yield is pathetic.
Maybe if someone else finds a way, then that would be interesting.
AGAIN: PLEASE, DO NOT TRY BURNING/ROASTING ARSENIOUS COMPOUNDS! Only use wet chemistry!
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neptunium
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amazing how nature always provides what the government try to keep off limits..mercury can be obtain much the same way, iodine and uranium as well.
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Morgan
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Tidbits from Reddit
http://i.imgur.com/LsgyBCM.jpg
http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/26gyqf/realgar_crystal...
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Dan Vizine
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Blessed be eBay, purveyors of fine poisons that they aren't equipped to regulate efficiently.
Recently the floodgates have opened on As, too. GalliumSource sells it by the ounce. Thallium, too. A few years ago, this wasn't the case (so much).
Uranium, iodine, red, white & black phosphorus, bromine are on eBay very frequently. Another guy sells Na, K, & Cs.
A huge chunk of uranium 238 was just offered there. Technetium salts, too.
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blogfast25
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They cotton on soon enough. It's the sheer volume of listings that make looking for 'illegal' stuff difficult, like a needle in a hay stack, unless
trigger keywords are used in the ad. They pulled my listing for K2Cr2O7 (after 3 years!), apparently they had been advised to do so by the Home Office
(these chumps really have adventure filled days!)
So whomever has listings on exotic materials: sooner or later the good times end...
[Edited on 31-5-2014 by blogfast25]
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Dan Vizine
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Point taken, but somebody new always fills the void. It's extraordinary and, for now, great!
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sbreheny
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I recently bought several of the items described below on eBay, and I bought Sodium on amazon.com. The Tc salt I purchased is NaTcO4 and based on
evaporating off the water and measuring the radioactivity, I estimate only about 50ng NaTcO4 in the whole 1mL sample. The majority of the residue is
NaCl. This jives pretty well with the typical medical diagnostic dose of Tc99m (which decays very rapidly back to ground state Tc99 - itself only
mildly radioactive). It seems to me that there is absolutely no real danger from 50ng of Tc99 (Tc99m, yes, but not Tc99).
Quote: Originally posted by Dan Vizine  | Blessed be eBay, purveyors of fine poisons that they aren't equipped to regulate efficiently.
Recently the floodgates have opened on As, too. GalliumSource sells it by the ounce. Thallium, too. A few years ago, this wasn't the case (so much).
Uranium, iodine, red, white & black phosphorus, bromine are on eBay very frequently. Another guy sells Na, K, & Cs.
A huge chunk of uranium 238 was just offered there. Technetium salts, too. |
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woelen
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It's coming in waves. Apparently, eBay now has a lot of seller, selling all kinds of stuff which eBay does not realy like. This can go on, up to a
certain point. Then suddenly eBay is aware of all the unwanted (not cecessarily illegal) activitity and then they start pulling listings from their
site. Once all (or at least most) has been cleared up again, their focus goes to something else and slowly the amount of chemical stuff, offered on
eBay, increases again. So, I would say, now you have the chance, grab the stuff you like and can afford. Tomorrow all of it may have gone.
The previous wave of chemical offerings was around 2005, 2006 (in that time I purchased really nice stuff like NbCl5, KCN, CuBr2, Pb(NO3)2, HIO4,
HIO3, I2O5, PCl5, NaH, and many other very reactive and hard to obtain chemicals) and then there was a sudden decline when eBay became zealous in
removing anything remotely risky.
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neptunium
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regardless of ebay being aware or not whats being sold on its watch, anything going on on the internet these days is certainly being watch and
recorded.
As long as we stay out of trouble and responsible and reasonnable with the quantities order i dont think there should be any problem ....
as always , it takes 1 imbecile bragging or getting hurt , to screw it all for everyone else .
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Dan Vizine
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http://www.mcssl.com/store/gallium-source/005---arsenic-meta...
$101 for 25 g.
Roughly $4/g to those in the US. Hardly worth the effort/time/risk of DIY. And they are fully known to the proper
authorities. It's not illegal (in the US, anyway).
If I wasn't doing something that someone, somewhere might find "suspicious" due to their lack of knowledge, I might as well switch to collecting
butterflies.
The general public is suspicious of science, scientists and "chemicals" in general. They generally lack the understanding to differentiate "chemicals"
from "dangerous chemicals". They lack understanding of safe usage of both classes by capable and responsible users. That is currently a matter of some
note in the science community. Advertisers tout their products as being made by nature, love, black magic...ANYTHING but being made by scientists
(yes, there are food chemists). Google "Yoghurt vs. scientists" to find a discussion in Nature Chemistry.
And remember "don't drink from the periodic table" as the nice ad says...presumably you should further investigate dark matter.
[Edited on 15-8-2014 by Dan Vizine]
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