DMSO from Plants?

[recursive]

I read that DMSO is produced industrially from vegetable matter or wood pulp.

 

Is this an easy process? By 'easy', I mean soaking the veggies or wood or hay or whatever it is in a solvent and distilling.

 

Also is it difficult to synthesize? I'm just trying to get some to play with, not medical grade or anything, just enough so that is is appropriate to call it dmso.

 

So how can I do this without buying it from one of those kooky health places?

 

And while I'm on the topic of solvents, how about acetaldehyde? It seems so simple, yet nothing I do gives me anything remotely acetaldehyde-ish... How do I synthesize it?

 

edit: I think meant formaldehyde. Yeah...That's the word.

[DrDNA]

DMSO is not a toy. If you were to get some to "play with", and you should NOT, it should be pharmacological grade because impurities can cause death.

 

1. On exposure to air it forms a very high and toxic level of peroxides.

2. Side effects include skin irritation, stomach upset, sensitivity to light, visual disturbances, and headache. Improperly diluted DMSO can also burn the skin.

3. It is an *extremely* powerful solvent which can carry solutes directly into the bloodstream linke a "chemical hypodermic needle" . Because of this, severe consequences can result if impure grades of DMSO are used. Because of its fast action of taking solutes with it into the bloodstream, a substance which by itself might ordinarily have limited or no effect could cause serious damage or death if accidentally or intentionally applied to the body with or in a DMSO solution.

 

You can read more about it here

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_DMSO_dimethyl_sulfoxide_dangerous&src=ansTT

or just googling DMSO dangers

[John Cuthber]

The typical sulphur content of wood is about 0.01% so the yeild of DMSO from timber would be, at best, pitiful.

The reason it's dome comercially is that lots of sulphur is used in processing the paper pulp and some of this sulphur is converted to DMSO.

If you look here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_process

you will see that this isn't the sort of thing it would be easy to do at home.