Sciencemadness Discussion Board

DCM

arkoma - 13-4-2022 at 11:42

I should have taken a picture of the damn can, because I can't remember the brand, but I purloined a liter of brake cleaner out of a gallon can my buddy had. DCM and toluene were the first listed ingredients. Long and short is I now have 250ml of a liquid approx 1.3 density, and a sharp boiling point of 40 C on my cheap thermometer. OTC in my neck of the woods (southern USA) and I'll try to find out the brand name.

*edit* i'm gonna go ahead and fraction off the rest and see what i get.

[Edited on 4-13-2022 by arkoma]

Fantasma4500 - 17-4-2022 at 10:40

digging about in MSDS i found these to contain DCM

"POLYCELL MAXIMUM
STRENGTH PAINT STRIPPER" 50-100% methylene chloride, brand is UK based though
Supplied by: ICI Paints,Wexham Road,Slough,Berkshire,SL2 5DS, UK.
and then i found one with 60%+ but its australia based


PRODUCT NAME PAINT STRIPPER
PRODUCT NO. EDTP400
APPLICATION Paint Remover
SUPPLIER H K WENTWORTH PTY LIMITED
P.O. BOX 339
BROOKVALE, NSW 2100
AUSTRALIA



SWIM - 17-4-2022 at 21:03

Cool! DCM is getting hard to find in the US these days.
At least around here.
Seems like they've phased out DCM paint strippers in at least some states.

Those were always a pain with the methanol and the thick residue anyway.

Dr.Bob - 18-4-2022 at 10:02

If anyone near NC wants some, I might be able to provided some material to recycle from a DCM/methanol mixture. I also sometimes have hexane which is nearly pure, so a simple distillation might provide good stuff.

Deathunter88 - 18-4-2022 at 10:27

Quote: Originally posted by SWIM  
Cool! DCM is getting hard to find in the US these days.
At least around here.
Seems like they've phased out DCM paint strippers in at least some states.

Those were always a pain with the methanol and the thick residue anyway.



DCM has been phased out of paint strippers federally I'm pretty sure. The new formulations contain dimethyl carbonate or NMP.

Lionel Spanner - 19-4-2022 at 11:53

Polycell apparently no longer contains DCM; the MSDS only declares butyl acetate and cyclohexanone, and they're minor components.
The reported density (1.4 g/cc) is close to a chlorinated solvent, but the reported boiling point (123 °C) is way too high.

https://www.polycell.co.uk/files/2017/02/PU_GB_EN_MAXIMUM_ST...

Fantasma4500 - 27-4-2022 at 06:21

oh damn- the MSDS i got on it says, menacingly, dreadfully- "Issued 1 August 2002"

well- i guess my prayers for a source of butyl acetate/butyl alcohol were heard, then ill have to find out what cyclohexanone can do

"Date of previous issue : 25-7-2016" is on the MSDS you linked .. what could possibly be 80%? butyl acetate doesnt mix with water so it couldnt be that, how can they just leave up main components from MSDS? not sure if i understand the whole point about material data safety sheets anymore.
i guess we might be down to using ethyl ether, or maybe MEK which supposedly has low water solubility in Na2CO3 solution- or maybe ethyl acetate even. sodium acetate decomposes into acetamide, is there maybe some high boiling ethyl compound that can be made easily so we can avoid using precious acid? anhydrous sodium acetate is quite low density

unionised - 27-4-2022 at 13:15

Quote: Originally posted by Antiswat  

Supplied by: ICI Paints,Wexham Road,Slough,Berkshire,SL2 5DS, UK.




ICI paints hasn't existed for years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Chemical_Industries#T...

Lionel Spanner - 27-4-2022 at 13:31

Quote: Originally posted by Antiswat  
"Date of previous issue : 25-7-2016" is on the MSDS you linked .. what could possibly be 80%? butyl acetate doesnt mix with water so it couldnt be that, how can they just leave up main components from MSDS? not sure if i understand the whole point about material data safety sheets anymore.

My best guess, based on my experience in an adjacent industry, would be that the major component is some kind of polyethylene oxide/polypropylene oxide polymer, or more likely a mixture of them.

They're versatile surfactants, they can be fine-tuned to produce a huge range of physical properties, they're generally heavier than water, and they're generally non-hazardous, which would explain why they've not been declared on the MSDS.

And if it were a proprietary blend (which quite possible, given that the brand owner, AkzoNobel, is also a major chemical manufacturer), their omission from the MSDS would make even more sense.

Fantasma4500 - 21-5-2022 at 07:04

poly ethylene oxide/ poly propylene oxide polymers.... do these end up as practically useless chemically speaking- and mayhaps- chemically inert solvents? if its a mixture it might be hard to prove that this is whats in there by boiling point

"Polyethylene oxide, or high-molecular-weight polyethylene glycol, is synthesized by suspension polymerization. "

hm- ethylene glycol can be reacted with urea to form a compound that can then be hydrolyzed into ethylene amines.. possibly ethylediamine iirc

anyways to stay on topic. for those of us stuck in EU
https://shop.es-drei.de/halogenkohlenwasserstoffe/397/dichlo...

10L. 98 euro. if it wasnt because of customs i would go for it, just stocking up and reselling should be easy.

draculic acid69 - 25-5-2022 at 02:33

Quote: Originally posted by Deathunter88  
Quote: Originally posted by SWIM  
Cool! DCM is getting hard to find in the US these days.
At least around here.
Seems like they've phased out DCM paint strippers in at least some states.

Those were always a pain with the methanol and the thick residue anyway.



DCM has been phased out of paint strippers federally I'm pretty sure. The new formulations contain dimethyl carbonate or NMP.


Dimethyl carbonate sounds useful. Nmp is in graffiti remover here.

Keras - 25-5-2022 at 03:26

Cheaper here.

draculic acid69 - 26-5-2022 at 19:33

Quote: Originally posted by Lionel Spanner  
Polycell apparently no longer contains DCM; the MSDS only declares butyl acetate and cyclohexanone, and they're minor components.
The reported density (1.4 g/cc) is close to a chlorinated solvent, but the reported boiling point (123 °C) is way too high.

https://www.polycell.co.uk/files/2017/02/PU_GB_EN_MAXIMUM_ST...


Tetrachloroethylenes boiling point is very close. And it's very much likely
that a company that used DCM and is no longer able to would just switch
to the next closest thing. That seems to happen a lot with chemistry.

Fantasma4500 - 27-5-2022 at 03:10

wouldnt they typically have stuff in thats not too far apart in BP? butyl acetate is 126*C
i could go and do some experimentation but theyre sitting so fine on the shelf for now, i got 2 buckets- hmu if anyone in EU needs butyl acetate...

Fantasma4500 - 8-6-2022 at 13:17

https://patents.google.com/patent/CN102180777A/en


diethoxymethane
i believe this is what i just made by accident by adding EtOH to a mixture of HCl and formaldehyde, it smells very sweet but what i got seemed to boil at maybe 60*C- hm? seems rather easy to make and if one reacts MeOH with redhot copper, pumps that formaldehyde directed into heated ethanol with some ... HCl - seemingly this could work
about 4g/100mL water solubility- but BP around 88*C
methyl variety boils at 33*C but dissolves.. "33%" in water

Endo - 9-6-2022 at 09:29

Antiswat,

I have seen several warnings about the formaldehyde + HCl combination. I avoid this combination in my lab just because Cancer. If for some reason I did work with it I would keep it under the hood and sure as hell would not be smelling it.

Sciencemadness thread

Paper for study on Rats

Fantasma4500 - 13-6-2022 at 14:38

Quote: Originally posted by Endo  
Antiswat,

I have seen several warnings about the formaldehyde + HCl combination. I avoid this combination in my lab just because Cancer. If for some reason I did work with it I would keep it under the hood and sure as hell would not be smelling it.

Sciencemadness thread

Paper for study on Rats


alright thanks for the heads up, i might add that when i had the ethanol added in the HCl/formaldehyde was entirely gone.