Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Inflated prices

Inflated prices

Nemo_Tenetur - 15-1-2025 at 02:27

I was really shocked after a quick search for actual prices for some lab chemicals here in Germany!

Fuming sulphuric acid , 500 gram (about 250 milliliter!) 408 Euro.

Even the non-analytical grade ("rein" means slightly better than technical grade) calls for 585 Euro per 500 milliliter.

Nitric acid fuming 572 Euro per liter.

Carbohydrazide, not analytical grade (lousy 97%, thats technical grade), 452 Euro per 500 gram.

Don´t forget to add taxes in each case (19%).

All these chemicals are produced in very large quantities worldwide from cheap precursors. Are the prices in other areas of the world also at such an outrageous level?

fx-991ex - 15-1-2025 at 06:38

sigma are known to be ripoff, you may get better price if you call them but almost everyone avoid them because as i said, they are a ripoff.

[Edited on 15-1-2025 by fx-991ex]

Nemo_Tenetur - 15-1-2025 at 09:37

Here is another example, tetrachloromethane:

https://www.analytics-shop.com/de/sa289116-100ml

100 ml = 385 Euro plus taxes. That´s insane for large-scale industrial chemical produced from natural gas and elemental chlorine.

Fery - 15-1-2025 at 09:44

CCl4 is banned in EU, my friend who is a chemistry company cofounder buys CCl4 from India and pays import taxes.

Plateings - 15-1-2025 at 10:43

Quote: Originally posted by Fery

CCl4 is banned in EU, my friend who is a chemistry company cofounder buys CCl4 from India and pays import taxes.

It's surprising that CCl4 is prohibited in the EU but not in Turkey. Despite Turkey not being an EU member, its chemical regulations often align with EU standards. However, in Turkey, it seems much easier for ordinary consumers to purchase many chemicals directly, without needing to be a company or present specific documentation. For instance, CCl4 can be bought in 0.5L quantities for $16.50.

[Edited on 15-1-2025 by Plateings]

Texium - 15-1-2025 at 11:05

CCl₄ is practically unavailable and very expensive in the US, even from companies that only sell to businesses and universities. I have always used alternatives when adapting procedures that call for it.

Sigma's prices are generally very high, but I've found that in a few cases the cost justifies it. Anhydrous solvents, for instance. Other companies' septum sealed bottles are simply inferior to Sigma's SureSeal bottles. I've checked water levels with Karl Fischer titration and never found a bottle from Sigma to be out of spec, while bottles made by Acros or Alfa-Aesar have had orders of magnitude more water than they were supposed to before even being used. This can make or break water sensitive reactions. When you're doing research on a professional lab budget, you need to be able to trust the quality of your reagents, and it's worth paying for it.

Also, most universities and large companies have pricing deals with Sigma and the other big companies so the prices you see on the public site are not what they actually pay.

Keras - 15-1-2025 at 11:42

Starting this year Laboratorium Discounter sells carbon disulphide for quite a low price. Make it react with an excess of chlorine and you get CCl₄. You get also S₂Cl₂, that you can use with, e.g. sodium acetate to get acetic anhydride.

Nemo_Tenetur - 15-1-2025 at 12:01

Do you mean laboratoriumdiscounter.nl ? I´ve just checked their website and it doesn´t contain carbon disulphide.

Carbon disulphide is highly poisonsous and extremely flammable, therefore not allowed in Germany to sell online to private individuals.

I was redirected from their .nl website directly to their German language website. Maybe this is the reason why I didn´t found it?

Deathunter88 - 15-1-2025 at 12:12

Quote: Originally posted by Texium

CCl₄ is practically unavailable and very expensive in the US, even from companies that only sell to businesses and universities. I have always used alternatives when adapting procedures that call for it.

Sigma's prices are generally very high, but I've found that in a few cases the cost justifies it. Anhydrous solvents, for instance. Other companies' septum sealed bottles are simply inferior to Sigma's SureSeal bottles. I've checked water levels with Karl Fischer titration and never found a bottle from Sigma to be out of spec, while bottles made by Acros or Alfa-Aesar have had orders of magnitude more water than they were supposed to before even being used. This can make or break water sensitive reactions. When you're doing research on a professional lab budget, you need to be able to trust the quality of your reagents, and it's worth paying for it.

Also, most universities and large companies have pricing deals with Sigma and the other big companies so the prices you see on the public site are not what they actually pay.

To add on to this, in a research setting the main cost is human resources and not the reagents. I only began to appreciate this after starting working on my PhD. I am funded on a 100k grant but only 5 grand goes to supplies, the rest goes to salary, tuition, university overhead etc.

When I'm in my home lab if my hardware store grade toluene has an impurity that messes up my extraction, it's a bummer but not a big deal. If I'm working on a sponsor funded project with a tight deadline and my toluene wash adds some contamination that I don't notice until I'm doing TEM then that's at least a couple grand worth of instrument time wasted plus potentially loss of a sponsor not to mention my own paid time. So I would happily pay 10x the cost of what I can get toluene elsewhere for the peace of mind.

Also to back up what Texium said about discounts, I was ordering more isopropanol for my lab yesterday. The publically listed price for a case of four 4L jugs of HPLC is $728. When I log in to my university account the price drops to $100, which is actually on par with what it would cost for me to buy isopropanol from the hardware store. I find most things actually cost just 10-50% of the publically listed price.

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Nemo_Tenetur - 15-1-2025 at 12:47

Quote: Originally posted by Fery

CCl4 is banned in EU, my friend who is a chemistry company cofounder buys CCl4 from India and pays import taxes.

I doubt that CCl4 is banned in EU. According to the european chemical agency website carbon tetrachloride is manufactured and/or imported in quantities between 1.000 and 10.000 tonnes per year and used:

https://echa.europa.eu/de/substance-information/-/substancei...

That´s a little bit too much for research and laboratory use only.

It is regulated in different ways (for example, as an ozone depleting agent, as CMR substance not available for the general public/private individual, it may be used only in closed reaction systems to avoid release into the environment etc.) but not generally prohibited for any use.

Keras - 15-1-2025 at 21:56

Quote: Originally posted by Nemo_Tenetur

Do you mean laboratoriumdiscounter.nl ? I´ve just checked their website and it doesn´t contain carbon disulphide.

Check their ‘own brand’ chemicals,
here.

6dthjd1 - 16-1-2025 at 08:28

Fuming sulfuric acid is always very expensive in my experience. It is made in huge quantities but not in the same proportion as of concentrated sulfuric acid. Fuming sulfuric acid is harder to store and maintain compared to sulfuric acid. Though this price is very high. I've seen more like 240 USD for 250 ml

Sulaiman - 16-1-2025 at 09:14

Sigma is owned by merck so a near monopoly, hence expensive.

Keras - 16-1-2025 at 10:52

Quote: Originally posted by 6dthjd1

Fuming sulfuric acid is always very expensive in my experience. I've seen more like 240 USD for 250 ml

This is ridiculous, given how easy it is to make oleum. I don’t even mention pyrolysing sodium bisulfite into sodium trioxide, but the method Nurd Rage demonstrated on his channel.

Texium - 16-1-2025 at 11:02

Sure, making it is relatively easy and cheap, but it's not that ridiculous when you consider the expense and risk involved with storing and shipping it. Same goes for fuming nitric acid.

6dthjd1 - 16-1-2025 at 12:12

Quote: Originally posted by Keras

Quote: Originally posted by 6dthjd1

Fuming sulfuric acid is always very expensive in my experience. I've seen more like 240 USD for 250 ml

This is ridiculous, given how easy it is to make oleum. I don’t even mention pyrolysing sodium bisulfite into sodium trioxide, but the method Nurd Rage demonstrated on his channel.

As indicated above and below it may be easy to make but it's hard to do so safely compared to H2SO4.

Fery - 28-2-2025 at 04:21

Quote: Originally posted by Nemo_Tenetur

Do you mean laboratoriumdiscounter.nl ? I´ve just checked their website and it doesn´t contain carbon disulphide.

Carbon disulphide is highly poisonsous and extremely flammable, therefore not allowed in Germany to sell online to private individuals.

I was redirected from their .nl website directly to their German language website. Maybe this is the reason why I didn´t found it?

They sell CS2 in aluminium bottles. Delivery into a lot of EU countries. Maybe there are some transport safety limits and they had to split into smaller packs to reduce delivery costs. I encountered something similar with 35% HCl from Poland where 5x 1L glass bottles delivery at normal price and 5 L plastic barrel too much overpriced delivery cost so I opted for the 5x 1 L choice).

Dr.Bob - 1-3-2025 at 17:39

I do understand the cost as shipping these is a nightmare. And any accident will be a major issue and lawsuit. If it is so easy to make, just make it. I have found that even small amounts of things considered highly hazardous can cost a fortune. If you use a lot of them, you can buy larger amounts, but if you only use a little, then everyone will be afraid to sell them to you, as you will be considered a risk.

Dynamite is not very expensive, but costs a lot to buy a little, due to regulatory burdan and shipping being a nightmare, but I have seen a semi of it before, and that likely provides it at a reasonable price, but only quarries and such buy it in that amount. Buying one stick will likely cost a lot as no one wants to sell it to someone who only needs one stick.

MrDoctor - 1-3-2025 at 18:16

Where i live, shipping is generally the main issue and cause of high prices, since theres usually a significant import-addon, which is then coupled by the limited access to actual shops and factory outlets, some even insist that by rule/law they NEED to ship products out and that their warehouses are prohibited from allowing collections. I think my local sigma does that, or used to until very recently.
But safety regulations are going up, so hazmat shipping gets more expensive and restrictive.

You may want to consider buying larger quantities, although i realize fuming acids are not exactly the easiest things to store. you may find that youll be able to get vastly better deals.

Dr.Bob - 5-3-2025 at 10:11

Quote: Originally posted by Dr.Bob

Dynamite is not very expensive, but costs a lot to buy a little, due to regulatory burdan and shipping being a nightmare, but I have seen a semi of it before, and that likely provides it at a reasonable price, but only quarries and such buy it in that amount. Buying one stick will likely cost a lot as no one wants to sell it to someone who only needs one stick.

Apparently I was wrong, dynamite is readily available to the public in Bolivia:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mountain-eats-men-bolivian-town-1...

Maybe you can get acids there cheap also...