Chemicals, and how to obtain them.

[Theophrastus]

Well, what with budding ideas, I'm relatively well off now. I've actually heard of the site, but they don't sell outside of the United States, which given my geographical location, is a key impediment.

[salter]

Ah, I wasn't sure about that.

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

You should still check out the site tho its fun XD

[Hephaestus]

Can we clean up this thread to keep it to topic? Is a very useful idea!

[hermanntrude]

I think perhaps it works better if you stop backseat modding and just imagine the title of the thread to be something a bit broader "general discussion of home chemistry" perhaps?

[Brian_Pears]

In the 60s/70s/80s I obtained most chemicals I wanted for home experimentation from a local wholesaler without any problems. Some I got much cheaper from a wholesaler who dealt mainly in cleaning, office and light industrial supplies. For chemicals the wholesalers wouldn't sell me, I persuaded a local pharmacist (who knew me well enough to trust me) to get them for me. For some, eg chloroform, I needed a police certificate, but this was issued without problems after a home visit by a police sergeant.

 

Apart from ferric chloride (for printed-circuit etching) and photographic material, I haven't tried to obtain chemicals since then, and no doubt regulations will have tightened up considerably, but I think it is still worth checking with local wholesalers. You never know, you might be lucky. And if you know a local pharmacist well enough, it is certainly worth exploring that route too.

[Mossydie]

Spirits of Salts is another one to look out for, that's HCl...I found a 5l bottle going on Ebay(.co.uk)

Isn't NaOH sold in pure, cystalline form as caustic soda which can be bought from any supermarket?

I also found a guy selling Liquid mercury at £10 / 4oz Plus postage which suprised me because it's apparently hard to get hold of. I didn't buy any though, I don't want to touch that stuff...

Someone else was selling 2l bottles of battery acid from a garage clearout although he wouldn't post them

I found a site called http://www.reagent.co.uk/ which seems to sell everything although I assume it will require a license number of some sort at some stage during checkout for the controlled chemicals.

Pottasium / Sodium nitrates, and Pottasium Permanganate and other such oxidisers can often be bought from ebay.co.uk too

Hell, most chemicals can be got by someone with enough experience / money / determination!

Paranoia is hitting me now because I'm sure everything I have said is just far too obvious, but oh well.

Edited May 14, 2009 by Mossydie

[Melvin]

Hmm, I seem to be digging up an older thread here...

 

Anyway, I think this will be a good addition to it.

 

I have been concerned with acquiring acids just like Theophrastus, especially sulfuric acid. I have plenty of HCl, but no sulfuric.

 

Well, while searching around I found a chart that compares the solubilities of NaCl in HCl at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/je60084a015 and it shows that NaCl is pretty insoluble in concentrated HCl. So I mixed some excess conc. HCl with solid sodium bisulfate (normal sulfate would work but I didn't have any on hand), filtered off the insolubles, and boiled down the liquid. For most of the boiling, a strong HCl smell came off, but that became SOx smell and it gave off the characteristic white fumes as it became more concentrated. I ended up with thick, clear concentrated sulfuric acid . It discolors sugar immediately, and turns black within a few minutes.

[hermanntrude]

this is a very unsafe procedure, and that, coupled with the fact you have only a vague clue as to what your product actually was, leads me to suggest that others should not try this method, especially if they like their lungs and eyes.

[Xittenn]

Would I be far off if I searched through Thiol containing Oligopeptides?

 

[edit]

 

ooops sorry, how did that happen...........

Edited August 26, 2009 by buttacup

[insane_alien]

butta, i have a feeling you missed the thread you intended to post in

[Theophrastus]

this is a very unsafe procedure' date=' and that, coupled with the fact you have only a vague clue as to what your product actually was, leads me to suggest that others should not try this method, especially if they like their lungs and eyes.

[/quote']

 

Well, I agree on that, as actually breathing the vapours that come off, is not fun and can lead to some pretty serious consequences. The nature of the method, I think was smartly planned out; I never knew that sodium chloride was near to insoluble in conc. HCl. However, this means that you can't really scale it up as when HCl concentrations plummet, you begin to enter a more prevalent equilibrium, reducing your yield.

 

[ce] 2HCl + Na2SO4 <=> 2NaCl + H2SO4 [/ce]

 

Furthermore, as the products are boiled off, one expects that HCl, would be the first to evaporate. You should also take care to filter off the sodium chloride generated, otherwise, in the "boiling off" process, your sulfuric acid product, would simply react to form HCl, which would consequently vaporize, so on and so forth, ad nauseum.

 

[ce] H2SO4 + 2NaCl -> 2HCl + Na2SO4 [/ce]

 

ps: Oh, and in regards to the acid fumes, I think a simple sodium bicarbonate solution would suffice.

[hermanntrude]

there's still no actual evidence that sulfuric acid was synthesised in any significant purity. so the solution smelt of sulfuric acid... so what? that just means two things:

 

1) the experimenter wasn't using adequate ventilation

2) there may have been some sulfuric acid present.

 

this is not the way to do chemistry

[Theophrastus]

there's still no actual evidence that sulfuric acid was synthesised in any significant purity. so the solution smelt of sulfuric acid... so what?

 

Well, that is true, and I do find, having in several poorly controlled experiments smelt a smidge of acid, that many acids have a rather similar "aromatic taste" to them. (Kind of like the sour taste of lemon juice, only more sour, and dry) Regardless, you're right that it doesn't constitute as proper experimental proof.

 

I recommend that you (Melvin) add the "acid" product to something like copper hydroxide and see what becomes of it. (Posting the results for our greater benefit) Best of luck!

 

ps: I've just realised, that it actually wouldn't be rather difficult to control acid concentration. One could simply slowly vent HCl vapour, into the flask with the acid/ chloride/ sulfate product.

[Melvin]

there's still no actual evidence that sulfuric acid was synthesised in any significant purity. so the solution smelt of sulfuric acid... so what? that just means two things:

 

1) the experimenter wasn't using adequate ventilation

2) there may have been some sulfuric acid present.

 

this is not the way to do chemistry

 

I was using more than adequate ventilation; the only time I actually smelled a "strong HCl smell" was when I wafted some of the fumes. Otherwise, I didn't smell anything. The final solution was completely odorless and was quite viscous. The "SOx smell" was only observed during the boiling.

 

Theophrastus, you're right that this doesn't work with lower concentrations of HCl. I used 30% HCl and carefully filtered off the sodium chloride before I started boiling it. When I get some time (school just started for me) I'll make some copper hydroxide and add some of the diluted product to it.

[Theophrastus]

(school just started for me)

 

Bad luck. In contrast I'm a little luckier: I have 'til the eighth, and our first day is a late start .

 

(Mind you, my free time these weeks, regardless, has been rather limited)

[hermanntrude]

I'd like to remind users (again) about our hazmat policy

 

please be careful what you describe and how. Particularly important is your description of the safety procedures so that if anyone decides to try to repeat your experiment they don't blow their faces off.

 

Boiling concentrated acids is not safe, smelling unidentified solutions (particularly boiling concentrated acids) is not safe and describing such procedures without any warnings to the general public is... not safe.

 

and you still have no proof of what you've made. Most likely it's an unholy mixture of acids and salts.

[Melvin]

I'm sorry hermanntrude, I respect the hazmat policy. If you think anything I posted violates the policy, feel free to edit it out.

 

As I mentioned, when I get more time, I will perform some more tests.

[hermanntrude]

I don't have the power to edit your posts, and really there's nothing that you've said that's against policy... BUT you'd be doing better if you reminded people of the dangers in your experiment and the measures that should be taken to minimize the risks.

[Melvin]

Okay, for some reason, this website won't let me edit my posts (and I'm not sure why not).

 

I'll keep trying to edit it, but for now the best I can do is here:

 

The previously mentioned procedure is dangerous as it involves toxic HCl and SOx gases and boiling, concentrated acids. It should only be performed with adequate ventilation using proper glassware. Protective eyewear, clothing, and gloves must be worn. Perform the experiment at your own risk.

[iNow]

Okay, for some reason, this website won't let me edit my posts (and I'm not sure why not).

You only have about six hours after making a post before the system locks you out from making edits. So, you can edit within a six hour window, but not after six hours. This is to prevent continuity issues (such as users changing a post AFTER someone responded to it, and the thread discussion no longer making sense). So, make your edits quickly, or not at all. If the issue is serious, you can PM a mod or admin and request they make the edit on your behalf since they have the ability to edit posts regardless of how old they are (however, issues aren't generally extreme enough to warrant that particular approach).

[Melvin]

Okay, I did a simple test with the "sulfuric acid." I made some copper(II) hydroxide by mixing solutions of copper(II) sulfate and sodium hydroxide. I diluted the "sulfuric acid" to about 10% concentration. This caused the solution to get quite warm. I mixed a small amount of the copper(II) hydroxide with the diluted "acid," which gave a light blue solution. Just for comparison, I took pictures with that solution and a solution made with pure copper(II) sulfate.

 

 

In both pictures, the left solution is the Cu(OH)2/"acid" and the right solution is the pure CuSO4. The left hand one looks slightly green the pictures, but in reality it was more bluish.

 

The left solution may be simply a more diluted form of copper(II) sulfate, or it may be something that I don't know about.

[monterto]

Living in Canada, I also have a tough time finding chemicals. I find most of them in Chinatown. Most of the shops are independantly owned and often family run so they don't have the same stigma toward selling the "meth/bomb making" chemicals that corporate stores will.

Here's a list of some chemicals I use and where I get them from.

• NaNO3 can be bought under the name "Nitre" in grocery stores for about $0.01/g
  
• HCl can be bought from any Canadian Tire in the paint section for ~$3/L
  
• Sulphuric Acid can be bought from some hardware stores but it really is tough to find.
  
• Lithium Metal can be extracted from Certain types of batteries. I've never tried this and can't attest to how dangerous or safe it is.
  
• 30% H2O2 can be bought from many health food stores for ~$5-10/L
  
• and of course you can build a makeshift hoffman apparatus for H2 and O2
  

[hermanntrude]

Okay, I did a simple test with the "sulfuric acid." I made some copper(II) hydroxide by mixing solutions of copper(II) sulfate and sodium hydroxide. I diluted the "sulfuric acid" to about 10% concentration. This caused the solution to get quite warm. I mixed a small amount of the copper(II) hydroxide with the diluted "acid," which gave a light blue solution. Just for comparison, I took pictures with that solution and a solution made with pure copper(II) sulfate.

 

[ATTACH]2271[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]2272[/ATTACH]

 

In both pictures, the left solution is the Cu(OH)2/"acid" and the right solution is the pure CuSO4. The left hand one looks slightly green the pictures, but in reality it was more bluish.

 

The left solution may be simply a more diluted form of copper(II) sulfate, or it may be something that I don't know about.

 

well done, melvin. You've made sulfuric acid. How pure it is another question of course. Think twice before you use it for anything you'd normally use sulfuric acid for... any potential impurities might cause unexpected reactions.

 

I'd also like to point out once again that your methods weren't really suitable for home chemistry... boiling acids are extremely dangerous. Please don't try this again without a fume hood, lab coat, goggles, acid-spill kit and a fire extinguisher handy.

[Melvin]

well done, melvin.

 

Thank you

 

How pure it is another question of course. Think twice before you use it for anything you'd normally use sulfuric acid for... any potential impurities might cause unexpected reactions.

 

Ok, I will. I was more interested in just making it to see if I could. I might try making esters, but that makes me wonder about any impurities

 

I'd also like to point out once again that your methods weren't really suitable for home chemistry... boiling acids are extremely dangerous. Please don't try this again without a fume hood, lab coat, goggles, acid-spill kit and a fire extinguisher handy.

 

I did use splash-proof goggles and gloves, but yeah, I really need to use more safety equipment.