Storage of liquid chlorine

Quote: Originally posted by VSEPR_VOID

I had a some what similar idea a long time ago, well I had means I saw a similar video on the storage of CO2 by Cody. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPxPyD5jSR4

300ml liquid chlorine in an amateur lab ?

Obvious but I'll mention it anyway;
300ml liquid chlorine = 468g = 13.4 moles = c300 litres gaseous chlorine

Given that 1000ppm is a lethal concentration,
300ml of liquid chlorine would fill a space of 300,000 litres (300 cubic metres) to a level where a few breaths are lethal
... a space larger than most amateur or even professional labs.
and, given that chlorine is denser than air, an even larger area would be lethal.

[Edited on 24-5-2018 by Sulaiman]

Quote: Originally posted by Sulaiman

Obvious but I'll mention it anyway; 300ml liquid chlorine = 468g = 13.4 moles = c300 litres gaseous chlorine Given that 1000ppm is a lethal concentration, 300ml of liquid chlorine would fill a space of 300,000 litres (300 cubic metres) to a level where a few breaths are lethal ... a space larger than most amateur or even professional labs. and, given that chlorine is denser than air, an even larger area would be lethal. [Edited on 24-5-2018 by Sulaiman]

no I meant 30mL sorry. Extra 0. The volume of the tube itself would be close to 300mL, 0.75 inches * 12 inches cylinder = 21.21 inches cubed = 347.56963 cubic mL,

You would not want to fill it more then 10% or so because it may boil upon opening and you want to ensure that gas comes out not liquid chlorine sputtering, so 10% of 350 ~ 30mL

If liquid chlorine aresol came out of it while it was connected to any kind of glassware you might have serious problems and or an explosion I think.

That guy just raged my typing. I am sure you can understand being accused of terrorism is an irritant.

The chemical is much less convenient then bromine.


Pretty sure that generating 300 liters of chlorine is insane in itself, that requires serious land to do safely.

This is meant for things like stannic, aluminum, iron, etc chloride generation etc

[Edited on 25-5-2018 by coppercone]

[Edited on 25-5-2018 by coppercone]

Quote: Originally posted by coppercone

... SO you are gonna setup a anhydrous chlorine generator, figure out all the flow rate control shit through your dryers and whatnot,

Quote: Originally posted by coppercone

the process of generating it anhydrous combined with what you need to use it for typically is just too much setup.[Edited on 25-5-2018 by coppercone]

Well its certainly a luxury given the price of hastalloy valves, you might as well put the money into buying a new property and storing the shit in a wooden barrel

There does not appear to be a good solution to this problem due to the exotic metals required. SW still wants a quote AFTER registration for the necessary hardware. this means your wallet is gonna get FUCKED UP

Now you can store it in cheap 316 stainless, in gaseous form, but its undesirably large container... though pv=nrt, you might get pressure fluctuate during synthesis due to cooling so it might be actually advantageous to store it in gas form, but then you need to put safety margins on temperature, you don't want it condensing if heating goes out in your lab..

I don't know how sigma sells for so cheap. Unfortunately they wont do buisness with us

Any idea where you can get the containers they use? If they are selling it filled with chlorine for 350$ the container must be pretty cheap.

[Edited on 25-5-2018 by coppercone]

What exactly are they selling? their website is in chinglish

"1000 mL of steel cylinder equipped with stainless steel valve. "

claims to be 1lb of gas, kind of dangerous really. the volume I mean.

Based on someones calculations in this thread, this is a full 300mL of chlorine, in a 1000mL bottle, meaning its in liquid form right?

Bromine is better because it won't all rapidly fill a space if spilled, not like something that boils at -34c


Also, out of curiosity:

"Steel is the most common material used in dry chlorine service. At temperatures above 300°F (149°C) a chlorine/steel fire can result. It is important to make sure steel in chlorine service does not go above this temperature either through internal/external heating or mechanical abrasion."

that's rather low. Are the exotic alloys also flammable?

And I found this gem:
http://www2.lbl.gov/ehs/Lessons/pdf/AHFcylinderLL.pdf

I would recommend making your own out of the right alloy rather then buying their shit LOL

told you coatings are trash, and they also use a weld! its not seamless. buncha yahoos are running that operation at sigma, nice use of burst disk too, that thing flattened out like a fucking bomb

IMO this shit should be stored like this:
there should be a inline burst disk, connected to a vent pipe, that leads off to some high up place, in case something over pressurizes, so it leads to a far away location devoid of people, but it might be useful if there is a fire, so the stuff does not add to the toxic environment of the flames themselves.

Kinda wish my welding gas regulators had that feature I don't want the god damn acetylene tank venting in my shop. I did get the long hoses though, so I can be away from it if there is a fire burning, 20 feet hopefully enough to jump away from a fireball like bruce willis

interesting youtube channel about industrial chemistry accidents and safety recommendations (bit large for us)

https://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB/videos

[Edited on 26-5-2018 by coppercone]

[Edited on 26-5-2018 by coppercone]

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

Seems to me there are a lot of dumb and hazardous ideas being thrown around in this thread. Why not throw a couple of litres of liquid chlorine in an aluminium dive cylinder and be done with it. If you are into hazardous storage then why make it over-complicated. I think there are only three feasible solutions to the question of Cl2 storage. 1. Store 0.2mL of liquid chlorine in a glass ampoule and bury the whole thing in acrylic for an element display. 2. Get a proper lecture cylinder of Cl2 gas. Be prepared to pay the bucks and go through proper channels. 3. Make Cl2 gas as needed, employing good lab practice.

I worked with coupious amounts of chlorine during my days in the supercapacitor/carbide derived carbon related field at the beginning of the 2000s. We had a rather sizeable stockpile of pressurized high purity chlorine in standard 50L sized cylinders that held about 60kg of the liquified gas in a fully charged state if I remember correctly (guess there was some headspace left in the cylinder). Sometimes we had five of those cylinders in house and two flowing concurrently. The cylinders were made of common (or perhaps less common) carbon steel, but no fancy stainless alloys. The valves on the cylinders were made from a brass alloy. They were chrome plated on the outside, but inside was bare brass.
Well long story short.....absolutely everything corroded in contact with chlorine and moisture from the air. As long as the chlorine is anhydrous, there is little chance of major corrosion taking place and even common alloys can withstand the effects, but wet chlorine is a totally different animal. None of the components that came after the actual chlorine cylinder and became exposed to moisture at some point, held for long and were subject to constant failures due to corrosion. The alloy composition was quite irrelevant....high grade stainless steel and special alloys corroded at a visually observable rate and none of the fancy "chlorine rated" components from "Swagelok" justified their astronomic cost. In fact we used regular copper tubing and standard brass pipe fittings and ball valves for years in the low pressure chlorine supply systems for feeding the reactors. To be honest these held up better than the specialty grade components and cost basically nothing in comparison. Also the high end chlorine pressure regulators at the cylinders were subject to failure as the membranes corroded and started leaking quite often. There is no escape from corrosion damage when dealing with chlorine gas that is not completely anhydrous and the only way to get some service life out of the operation is to engineer the system from massive and robust components. For membrane regulators and thinwalled parts the only thing that worked was pure PTFE or fully PTFE lined components.
It was a nightmare to maintain the systems....everything, invariant of alloys used, became coated in hygroscopic deposits of chlorides and was constantly wet, slimy and rusting away under your very eyes. A situation I would not want to encounter on my personal work premises....
As for the lethality of chlorine....well it is not a very effective poison...I survived the nice "atmosphere" for years Not to say that suddenly stepping into a room full of the good stuff will not knock you on your ass (don't ask how I know), but for sure you will not keel over dead at the very first breath.
All in all a nasty subctance to work with, especially if you are not prepared to sacrifice all of your tools and equipment as subjects for feeding the abhorrent corrosion that surrounds this element inherently.

Quote: Originally posted by coppercone

Interesting storage method, like storing hydrogen in palladium or whatever. Markx, are you sure there was not some kind of process defect from swagelok? I honestly expect nothing but the best from them. Did you bake the fittings prior to use age? I believe they come lightly greased sometimes. Maybe they were using old grease or something? And did you have any kind of problems with moisture getting back into the regulators/valves after they were used? (my idea was to basically heat the fittings after use, pull a vacuum on them, then quickly cap them off. On another note, is there some kind of nonreactive moisture scavanger that can be used inside of the tanks? Like if you put molecular sieves in em. (2A ? need to look at molecule size) And by low pressure I assume you mean the vaporization pressure of chlorine (~100psi)? [Edited on 29-5-2018 by coppercone]

Don't misunderstand my intentions...I have no plans to claim that Swagelok fittings suffer from any kind of quality defect regarding workmanship or material choice. They make high end components that are really excellent. My point was just that in such an agressive production environment that we had, absolutely everything corrodes and fails irrelevant of material and quality. Throwing expensive fittings to the slaughter at the mercy of the corrosion made no sense.
The scrubbing systems can be applied on the lines, but moisture gets in anyway (unless you work in a space suit under inert and totally dry atmosphere). Changing the cylinders and performing maintenance work will allow moisture to creep in momentarily and that is enough. Unless you dissassemble the whole system, clean it out with water and bake it dry afterwards...then assemble anew. Would make sense in small scale lab setup, but on an industrial setting it is unthinkable practice. And oh yes...the scrubber systems will also corrode and fail (I know from practice )