do chemical stores stock Methylene chloride

[jutntog1]

im curios becouse im intrested in using it to remove caffine from things... as a project, im just wondering is it a common chemical to be found at a chem store>?

[budullewraagh]

i've seen anhydrous caffeine for $35/lb, but anyway, it's pretty soluble in chloroform and hot water. freely soluble in pyrrole, THF, EtAc. save the pyrrole and THF, these are easier to make/obtain

[Fortuna]

Caffeine is industrially removed by SCFE (Super Criticsl Fluid Extraction) and this process is nearly 100% efficient. Commerciallly done using 1-butantol if memory serves. Easy to do, even in a home-made setup. Be sure to use SS20 as your reaction vessel.

 

Similiar to the illegal process of ...(Well, I guess I shouldn;t reveal this at the risk of being warned or banned.

[Fortuna]

Also, DCM, aka methylene Chloride, is commercially available as paint thinner/remover. You can distill it out using a steam bath ,as DCM has a very low boiling point.

 

Test yout distillate after distillation. DCM is pretty easy to discern. It has an easily measured boiling point, as well as a very uncommon density. Plus, it has that sweet smell. Also, easily determined by its ability to easily dissolve certain essential oils. (Yikes- I don;t want to get too specific here, I'm on the border of getting a warning if I tell you too much about it).

 

Let's just say that it is commonly used in a biphasic process to make certain illegal nitrosated precursor substances that are banned in just about every country I'm aware of. Possession of large quantities of DCM (with no other legitimate purpose) will bring the authorities down on you faster that driving down the left side of the road in the USA (or the right side on the UK). Definitely stuff to avoif unless you have a legit purpose for it.

 

Extracting essential oils is certainly one legit purpose. But, essential oil purists regard the steam distillation method as the most desirable extraction mathod, for obvious reasons. (Hard to get those last traces of DCM out of the finished product). But heck, most of them wouldn;t know the difference anyway.

 

We once did a test of steam distilled lavander oil vs solvent extraction and sent it off to be purity testedat an Essential oil certitifcation lab.. Both came back as nice and pure, with their stamp of approval. (Obviosly, they dont test their essential oils very well).

Out of good conscious, we didnt distribute the solvent extracted oil, except to those who were using it for soap-making processes I mean, who cares, they're basifying it anyway with NaOH or KOH or Triethanaloamine..

 

I had actually heard of some idiots using lavander oil to treat the skin of infants, ( to moisten their skin I assume. Some of these naturalists idiots blow me away with some of their practices. I showed them that even steam distilled lavander oil is composed of over 40 chemical ingredients, 4 of which are known carcinogens. Of course, they didn't care. After all, how could something "natura"l harm them, was their rational.

 

Ahem ! Well, Hemlock is natural and purely "organic" (whatwever the hell that means in their parlance), and willl kill you dead with certainty. But hey, to each his own I suppose.

 

I once saw someone treat a cut with lavander oil, which later became so infected that gangrene set in. Neeedless to say, the hand had to be amputated. Of course they blamed it on the dirt from the initial cut, not on the fungus that had cultivated itself in the lavander oil.

 

Are some of these essential oil naturalists total idiots ? Well, not all of the mare, some of htem are very careful and coniderate of what they have. Otheres are little more than voodoo practioners of the same ilk as Ms Cleo.

 

Oh well. Natural selection at work,

[akcapr]

big post. if u want to make cafeeine take some strong tea and lieave it out for a day or two- the cafeeine will precipetate.