Latest chemical order?

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

I acquired a jar of hydroquinone. Maybe 500g. What can be done with it?

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

I acquired a jar of hydroquinone. Maybe 500g. What can be done with it?

Quote: Originally posted by JJay

Wow! Apparently, you can buy whatever you want in Germany. I just picked up some sodium hypochlorite and acetic acid, both dilute solutions, as well as distilled water.

Nah, that would be a wrong impression. Many reagents restricted/watched in the US you can have without paperwork indeed, like Red P, iodine, methylamine etc.

But everything toxic you can't receive by mail. Cyanide, Arsenic salts, Benzene is nearly impossible to get as a private person without connections or "special sources".
Also there is only two onlineshops left who sell to private individuals.
These are way overpriced, and NaBH for example you would have to collect at the warehouse after filling out some paperwork, it is T, so no postage to individuals. Problem, when the physical location is 400 km's away.
Poland is much better ... and cheaper. And not too far away from Berlin where I live

Quote: Originally posted by JJay

Benzene isn't that hard to obtain in the U.S., although a lot of chemical suppliers will refuse to provide it to individuals. It's easy to make, though. I think you can obtain red phosphorus, iodine and methylamine in the U.S.A. without paperwork as well, but it's technically illegal, and I think doing so could lead to problems for the hobby chemist. Sodium borohydride is pretty easy to obtain here too and totally legal. Most toxic compounds can be transported by ground transportation but not by air.

Quote: Originally posted by Schleimsäure

Methylamine HCl 250g Diethyl Malonate 250 ml Propiophenone 250 ml Bromobenzene 250 ml GAA 2,5l Catechol 250g 1,2 Dichlorobenzene 400ml n-Butylamine 100ml Cycloheyxylamine 100ml

Quote: Originally posted by JJay

Bromothymol blue, for titrations. I'm trying to figure out why phenolphthalein is so popular....

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

Quote: Originally posted by JJay   Bromothymol blue, for titrations. I'm trying to figure out why phenolphthalein is so popular.... Well, that one is easy. Phenolphthalein is such an intense colour and shows a very sudden change. You can detect a tinge of pink appearing a whole lot more easily than a change from yellow to blue. Granted, the change for bromothymol blue occurs closer to neutrality: (pH 6.0-7.6 compared with 8.3-10.0 for phenolphthalein). But if you are titrating against a strong base (which is pretty common) that difference hardly matters. I am a believer in having a few different indicators. (If only because some of them are cool compounds.) But the one I use most often is phenolphthalein.

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

Well, that one is easy. Phenolphthalein is such an intense colour and shows a very sudden change. You can detect a tinge of pink appearing a whole lot more easily than a change from yellow to blue. Granted, the change for bromothymol blue occurs closer to neutrality: (pH 6.0-7.6 compared with 8.3-10.0 for phenolphthalein). But if you are titrating against a strong base (which is pretty common) that difference hardly matters.

Quote: Originally posted by JJay

30% hydrogen peroxide. I am about to lose my pirannah virginity. I guess it's like getting married?

Base piranha is underrated, in my opinion. It evaporates if you accidentally spill a few drops of it and if you get it on your skin, it stings, but probably less than 30% H2O2 by itself. It also leaves the white peroxide marks for a few minutes. Reason being, base piranha needs to be around the H2O2 thermal decomposition temperature to work. The ammonia seems to have the effect of reducing the likelihood of thermal runaway though, as opposed to acid piranha that has been known to explode, and can transition to thermal runaway very quickly.

Maybe try for third base before losing it?

No, I'm going all the way I have a really filthy Graham condenser that I'd prefer not to have to replace. Cleaning it calls for extreme measures. If piranha doesn't work, I'll be posting pictures of my new Graham condenser pretty soon.

2kg phosphorus (red)
100g cinnamyl chloride
100ml n-butyric anhydride
20g Li metal, or may have been 25g
500g iodine
5g 3-fluoro-4-(1,1-difluoromethoxy)-5-methoxybenzaldehyde
250g n-dodecanethiol
500ml SOCl2
1l nitroethane
Couple of welding-size argon cylinders and 1 of CO2
2l 98% H2SO4
(unsure of the weight, came from a pet store) bottle of methylene blue solution)
500ml conc. HCOOH

And not bought, but a script from my dr. for KMnO4. Needed a portion of one tablet for my foot, to bathe it in, but given a few pots. I am not going to turn that down. In fact I'm going to shoot for getting it on repeat

Not too familiar with base piranha, never used it. But with the acid version make sure there are no organics left. It'll oxidize inorganic carbon to CO2 and there is the potential (probability?) for anything but the tiniest traces of organics to result in a nasty explosion. Not a pretty thing to be covered by conc. H2SO4 and H2O2

[Edited on 9-2-2017 by tsathoggua1]

Quote: Originally posted by JJay

I had thought they banned ethyl acetate for sale in some states (for reasons that I don't claim to know or understand)... I do know that I've seen Rust Remover, Rust Converter and TSP Substitute on shelves recently. I'm guessing that these are products that don't sell very well, and for that reason, a lot of places still have stocks of them. I distilled some ethyl acetate from nail polish remover one time, but I think some additional purification steps were required... I don't remember offhand.

Quote: Originally posted by tsathoggua1

2kg phosphorus (red) 100g cinnamyl chloride 100ml n-butyric anhydride 20g Li metal, or may have been 25g 500g iodine 5g 3-fluoro-4-(1,1-difluoromethoxy)-5-methoxybenzaldehyde 250g n-dodecanethiol 500ml SOCl2 1l nitroethane Couple of welding-size argon cylinders and 1 of CO2 2l 98% H2SO4 (unsure of the weight, came from a pet store) bottle of methylene blue solution) 500ml conc. HCOOH And not bought, but a script from my dr. for KMnO4. Needed a portion of one tablet for my foot, to bathe it in, but given a few pots. I am not going to turn that down. In fact I'm going to shoot for getting it on repeat Not too familiar with base piranha, never used it. But with the acid version make sure there are no organics left. It'll oxidize inorganic carbon to CO2 and there is the potential (probability?) for anything but the tiniest traces of organics to result in a nasty explosion. Not a pretty thing to be covered by conc. H2SO4 and H2O2 [Edited on 9-2-2017 by tsathoggua1]

Where do you drug chemists get such quantities of phosphorus and nitroethane?

Quote: Originally posted by Geocachmaster

@Db33 I thought that Klean Strip M.E.K. substitute wasn't sold anymore. In fact, Klean Strip's website has it on the discontinued page, as the 12th item. I checked Ace's website as well and I could not find it there either. Did they just start selling it again?

Quote: Originally posted by Cryolite.

Quote: Originally posted by tsathoggua1   2kg phosphorus (red) 100g cinnamyl chloride 100ml n-butyric anhydride 20g Li metal, or may have been 25g 500g iodine 5g 3-fluoro-4-(1,1-difluoromethoxy)-5-methoxybenzaldehyde 250g n-dodecanethiol 500ml SOCl2 1l nitroethane Couple of welding-size argon cylinders and 1 of CO2 2l 98% H2SO4 (unsure of the weight, came from a pet store) bottle of methylene blue solution) 500ml conc. HCOOH And not bought, but a script from my dr. for KMnO4. Needed a portion of one tablet for my foot, to bathe it in, but given a few pots. I am not going to turn that down. In fact I'm going to shoot for getting it on repeat Not too familiar with base piranha, never used it. But with the acid version make sure there are no organics left. It'll oxidize inorganic carbon to CO2 and there is the potential (probability?) for anything but the tiniest traces of organics to result in a nasty explosion. Not a pretty thing to be covered by conc. H2SO4 and H2O2 [Edited on 9-2-2017 by tsathoggua1] Where do you drug chemists get such quantities of phosphorus and nitroethane?

Tsath' isn't coming back. He didn't go anywhere to begin with. Did have some confusion with forgetting the password to another account, 'toady' but just made this account, and before anyone discounts me as some trailer park redneck meth cook, I'm far from it. Won't say I have any problems with it, not on ethical grounds at least.

But as to whether I'm coming back. No. I'm still here.

And the pet store owner...why would methylene blue..yes its active as an MAOI (MAO-a selective) inhibitor, but generally speaking, of those reagents, methylene blue is the very least suspicious of the entire lot, more or less. And besides, he makes enough off me when I come in, IIRC my last purchase of chemicals, tubing, air diffusion stones etc. and assorted things like a long, flexible double-ended (two sizes) brush on the end of a coiled up wire braid type thing, perfect for scrubbing things out of flasks, cleaning test tubes and what have you. All in all came to £70-something. So he's got a fair incentive not to go snitching at the purchase of a bottle of dye, for microscope sample staining etc.


The compressor is the blue boxy looking thing,
Guy in this particular pet shop is quite happy to help out. Last time I saw him, he even donated me a fairly powerful air compressor and didn't mind me going round all the tubing to see which size fitted my Dimroth condenser and one of the Liebigs.

He'd happened to get this pump, someone sold it him in exchange for store credit, but as it happens, its former use was some medical purpose, came from a hospital, perhaps for CPAP, and it gives off quite a lot of vibration, which made it unsuitable for aquaculture. So he sold it me for the price he gave away in exchange for someone getting a couple of tropical fish. Kind of an xmas gift, sold at total cost of a fiver.



Oh and this isn't actually my lab itself. Its where excess items have had to find other places to be put, for capacity reasons since I have more equipment and reagents than I have shelving and bench space. Some of it has to go elsewhere when not in use.

[Edited on 18-2-2017 by tsathoggua1]

Glad you're still with us I wouldn't dare order 2 kilograms of red phosphorus.

I ordered some tartaric acid for making Fehling's solution

My, we are having lovely weather today

Priceless......................

Damn, bet the shipping on an HCl tank would be a bugger.

And 70% HF? oleum? jesus H. Thats the sort of thing that probably shouldn't be sold via ebay, lest inexperienced chemists stumble upon them, especially the HF.

Phosphorus fairly often appears, although often in small quantities for element collector's samples. He's even seen violet P once, going for some £20 a gram, for a few small broken up chunk crystals. Tsath's hoping his attempts will lead to being able to grow single crystals, both for himself and for other element collectors, in order to both be able to provide fine crystals of the allotrope and make himself some money to put into his equipment and reagent funds.

And to try and get himself a really good piece of native tellurium, like that astonishing and really rather beautiful, gemstone-quality crystal of native Te on sylvanite theodore gray has. Great looking thing, growing out of a long sylvanite crystalline rod, the crystal form kind of looks like bismuth, only with the steps inverse in direction, shape-wise, shiny and most definitely a potent inducer of lurid, radioactive-green covetous envy

1 g 10% palladium on carbon
950 ml formic acid
1 lb sodium chlorite
500 g polyphosphoric acid
500 ml propionic acid


Plus some more glass beakers. So now I have way more sodium chlorite than I'll ever need... Does anyone want to purchase some?

Acquisition of Sodium Chloride

I obtained 100 grams of sodium metal. It's starting to feel like I have a half decent lab now

I bought four bottles of asprin, 560 pills in all, and containing 182g of ASA. Total cost $4.22.

I wonder what the people at the store think, a 15 year old buying 25 lethal doses of aspirin. I've also bought bleach, ammonia, two pounds of salt, half a gallon of windshield washing fluid, and four tubes of toothpaste (extracting fluoride is a huge mess, waste of money) there so they must be used to it.

Quote: Originally posted by JJay

February 21, 2017 I purchased a 730 gram canister of sodium chloride at a local shop. This is the third time I've done this in a week, and the store personnel appear suspicious of my large volume sodium chloride purchases. I'd rather not have to come up with a cover story to hide my chemistry activities (for example: "Oh haha, I just like to make beef jerky in the middle of the night."), so I'm going to have to look for a new supplier.

It is not the shop keepers business to know how much salt you require to have brine baths for that 'personal' problem

Quote: Originally posted by Geocachmaster

I bought four bottles of asprin, 560 pills in all, and containing 182g of ASA. Total cost $4.22. I wonder what the people at the store think, a 15 year old buying 25 lethal doses of aspirin. I've also bought bleach, ammonia, two pounds of salt, half a gallon of windshield washing fluid, and four tubes of toothpaste (extracting fluoride is a huge mess, waste of money) there so they must be used to it.

Quote: Originally posted by Db33

got some 98% Food Grade Glacial Acetic Acid. Not sure how good food grade is but i assume its close to tech grade.

i dunno why i do this, i could have easily left it in the shitty plastic container but i like putting my chems in better looking glass bottles and labeling them with a little labeler i have.


So this is what my Citric Acid looks like

Didnt plan on these 2 arriving on the same day but it happend that way.

1,2, Dichloroethane
Dichloromethane

Potassium bromate 75 g. 99%

I want bromine but I'm too lazy to do the electrolysis

0.01 £/g
0.10 £/g including p&p from Russian Federation

Quote: Originally posted by woelen

I know of sodium percarbonate, but its peroxide content is quite low. Anhydrous Na2O2 has a fairly high peroxide content in terms of weight and still can be purchased (I have it from eBay). Converting it to moderately concentrated H2O2 (e.g. 15% or maybe even 20%), is not really trivial, but is doable.

Getting H2O2 out of Na2O2 and isolating that to high purity is not easy, but making a fairly concentrated solution, which also has some left-over ions in it is not that difficult.

Na2O2, when added to water, reacts to give NaOH and H2O2. This reaction is quite exothermic and the heat, produced in this reaction is comparable to the heat, produced by dissolving NaOH in water. You can make the liquid quite hot if you add a lot of Na2O2 to a little water quickly and probably a large amount of the formed H2O2 then will decompose.

So, you have to add the Na2O2 to ice cold water. If the water becomes too warm, then cool inbetween and add the Na2O2 in different small batches. I would take 100 grams of Na2O2 and add that to 100 ml of water, assuring that the liquid does not heat up too much. This may take quite some time!

Next, add 30% H2SO4 or so, also slowly, in different batches to neutralize the NaOH without excessive heating up of the liquid. Add acid, so that the liquid becomes neatral (a little excess of acid is better than too little of it). Na2SO4.10H2O is not freely soluble. I expect quite a lot of crystalline solid to separate, leaving a solution of H2O2 in water. The solid also takes out water. I am not sure about getting H2O2 in the crystal lattice.

This method is not something I tried, but I expect, however, that it is a viable method of making moderately concentrated solutions of H2O2. When the Na2O2 arrives, I'll try it with a small amount, to see how well this works. The solution will still contain some Na(+) ions and SO4(2-) ions. In most applications, this is not an issue.

With sodium percarbonate things should work similarly, but the solutions will be more dilute and you have a lot of bubbling of CO2. The reaction of sodium percarbonate with water is less exothermic than the reaction of sodium peroxide with water.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the more greedy ones: almost 100% H2O2

Add solid Na2O2 to 98% H2SO4 and get the following reaction: H2SO4 + Na2O2 --> Na2SO4 + H2O2. You get crystals of Na2SO4 in almost 100% pure H2O2, just decant the pure H2O2

There is one caveat though: This is the ultimate april fool's joke
Do not do this in real life! The extremely basic Na2O2 will react very exothermically with the strong acid and you may have lots of H2SO4 splattering around and the H2O2 immediately decomposes to water and oxygen. I will try this experiment. I take a small spatula of solid Na2O2 and add a single drop of concentrated H2O2. Let's see what spectacular thing happens!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that I am writing this, it makes me angry again about all these regulations in the EU . The above process is a lot of hassle just for getting some H2O2 in reasonable concentrations, but we have to deal with it. Buying a liter of 35% H2O2 at a local drugstore as I did 10 years ago definitely is something from the past! The same drugstore now only has 3% H2O2 in 100 ml bottles and they only sell it from a locked room, not freely available anymore in the shop.

[Edited on 5-4-17 by woelen]

Potassium Bromate arrived

Quote: Originally posted by Db33

this might be a little off topic but does everyone see the dichloromethane can? im having a hell of a time opening the lid, you have to push down and then open but it is not working, its like on alot of paint cans, any advice or tips on how to open it?

I try to recycle my DCM whenever possible, but I was running low. Also, I saw acetone on sale.