Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Alternative OTC sources for bromine

cnidocyte - 12-3-2011 at 21:17

Due to a shortage of privately owned swimming pools in my country there are very few swimming pool shops and since analogue photography is pretty much a thing of the past, the photography shops don't sell dark room chemicals any more. Are there any other OTC sources for bromides?

Sedit - 12-3-2011 at 22:31

Home Depot...

Oh wait what country are you from again?

guyp - 12-3-2011 at 22:40

I would recommend that you seek out pool sanitation products. Namely those involved in chlorine free sanitation of hot tubs. They tend to be fairly pure, albeit classified as technical grade, I have yet to find one that is suitable, that wasn't 98% pure or better.

With a recrystallization, they easily can become very pure. When refluxing the liquid product to near dryness, followed by crystallization, you may find a yellowish hue to the aqueous layer as the bromide salts out.

If you pour this off and redissolve the salt for crystallization, you will find very bright, glittering crystals of fairly pure sodium or potassium bromide depending on the product.

For most intents and purposes, they can be interchangeably used and are pure enough after recrystallization to be used in most synthesis.

Its quite amazing what you can find at a pool and spa supply company with a little searching.

Edit: Good to see you again Sedit, looks like you've beaten me to the punch yet once more. :)


[Edited on 13-3-2011 by guyp]

[Edited on 13-3-2011 by guyp]

UnintentionalChaos - 12-3-2011 at 22:50

Quote: Originally posted by guyp  
I would recommend that you seek out pool sanitation products. Namely those involved in chlorine free sanitation of hot tubs. They tend to be fairly pure, albeit classified as technical grade, I have yet to find one that is suitable, that wasn't 98% pure or better.

With a recrystallization, they easily can become very pure. When refluxing the liquid product to near dryness, followed by crystallization, you may find a yellowish hue to the aqueous layer as the bromide salts out.

If you pour this off and redissolve the salt for crystallization, you will find very bright, glittering crystals of fairly pure sodium or potassium bromide depending on the product.

For most intents and purposes, they can be interchangeably used and are pure enough after recrystallization to be used in most synthesis.

Its quite amazing what you can find at a pool and spa supply company with a little searching.

Edit: Good to see you again Sedit, looks like you've beaten me to the punch yet once more. :)


[Edited on 13-3-2011 by guyp]

[Edited on 13-3-2011 by guyp]


Do take note that NaBr forms a rather stable dihydrate. Based on wiki, it seems to fall apart above 36C so drying of the salt in a low oven would be recommended.

cnidocyte - 12-3-2011 at 23:39

The only bromine sanitisers I can find in the UK/Ireland are either 1-bromo-3-chloro-5,5-dimethylhydantoin or bromochloro-5,5-dimethylimidazolidine-2,4-dione they don't seem to sell chlorine free pool sanitisers around here.


Iguanaopolis - 13-3-2011 at 02:32

Silverprint is based in the UK and carries photography chemicals. They have potassium bromide for what seems pretty cheap to me.

cnidocyte - 13-3-2011 at 07:05

I tried to order from silverprint but they won't ship raw chemicals to Ireland. I ordered some from a UK based pet care website. Its used as an anti epileptic for dogs. This site has a fairly wide range of pure compounds.

[Edited on 13-3-2011 by cnidocyte]