Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Bromine Element Samples

Bromine Element Samples

VIOLiN - 16-4-2017 at 16:50

Hello everyone. I am starting a little business of selling element samples in my free time to earn some money for a new violin! Anyway, I have been making some bromine and have embedded it in resin so that it is attractive and safer to handle. I have 2 to sell right now. Here is the first one:

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6c2RDdlE5aHVCSUE[/img]

It is $80 plus $20 for shipping if you are interested. Unfortunately, I have to do the UPS Ground for bromine, which is quite expensive. I will only sell to people in the US. Sorry. Payments must be done via PayPal.

Here are some more pictures:

[img]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2RNP4M9D9p6OGVjRjBUMlRSYVk/view?usp=sharing[/img]

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6R3I2U1JsT0NlN1k[/img]

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6S0FMd1Q1MHFLNkU[/img]

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6blNWd0Q0X09wUWM[/img]

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6blNWd0Q0X09wUWM[/img]

Anyway, since this is handmade, the ampule is not perfectly straight in the resin when viewed from the side and there are a few small specks in the resin, but is otherwise perfect!

Here is the other one (same price and shipping price):

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6ZTNfeFhmUm5pWEU[/img]

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6ZERZaXExRTBkTkU[/img]

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6S01JdHdjYjhKTE0[/img]

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6VDJHN1BCSnFJVkE[/img]

This ampule is very nice and is more straight, but has a few minor scratches at the top (you can hardly see in person) as shown in this photograph:

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6ME9wQklrRnZiRmM[/img]

Anyway, once again, $80 + $20 shipping via PayPal. Thanks!

I have also been trying out some letters with the element's chemical symbol. As of right now, they are not for sale, but if there is enough interest, I might make more and sell them. Here is the bromine one:

[img]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2RNP4M9D9p6Z1dYaDNIVWtvblE[/img]

Let me know if this is something you might be interested in! I might do it with some more elements too. Mercury, chlorine, carbon, sulfur, bismuth????

Thank you!
(Hopefully, all of the photos were attached! I am new to this site. Hopefully, they show. Otherwise, you can always copy and paste the links that are between the [/img] to get to the photos.)

[file]58684[/file]

j_sum1 - 16-4-2017 at 16:59

Nice work but a wee bit pricey IMO.
I like the idea of the letter ampoules. That could be worth duplicating.

VIOLiN - 16-4-2017 at 17:06

Thank you for your valuable input. I really appreciate it.

j_sum1 - 16-4-2017 at 17:21

No problems.

The thing is that most people here can make their own bromine quite easily and have the means to put it in ampoules for storage or display. I am not for a moment suggesting that the price you have quoted is unreasonable -- it is probably a good reflection of the time and effort required as well as materials and shipping (properly) and also a profit margin that is necessary for these kinds of ventures. But I suspect that you will find few takers here because of the skill base of Science Madness members.

Thanks for sharing.

VIOLiN - 16-4-2017 at 17:58

Thank you! Maybe I'll try to post it to eBay.

Texium - 17-4-2017 at 10:16

I'd just like to point out that it appears that your bromine is wetting the glass. Pure bromine shouldn't do this, so it's likely that yours contains a significant amount of water. Shaking (very carefully) in a sep funnel with a bit of conc. sulfuric acid should fix this problem, and bromine treated thusly should no longer wet the glass.

MrHomeScientist - 17-4-2017 at 10:21

I've done that purification, and it's a terrifying process. The thought of dropping a sep funnel full of 98% acid and liquid bromine...
I had a small amount, so I used a small RBF and swirled it vigorously for several minutes. Maybe not as efficient, but I felt much more comfortable.

Your samples look great, by the way. I really want to try the resin embedding myself one day. How did you make the letter-shaped ampoules? That's an awesome idea!

Texium - 17-4-2017 at 10:26

Quote: Originally posted by MrHomeScientist

I've done that purification, and it's a terrifying process. The thought of dropping a sep funnel full of 98% acid and liquid bromine...

Yeah it's a bit nervous, certainly one of the few things that'll get me to don full PPE. I generally do about 50 mL of bromine at a time, in a 250 mL funnel.

JJay - 17-4-2017 at 14:22

I've done it a couple of times. Once I just put the bromine in a glass-stoppered bottle and covered it with sulfuric acid, added a stirbar, mixed it up a bit then pipetted out the bromine. That was actually fairly tame but I did it in a garage and had to wear a respirator. The other time I went all out with a 250 mL sep funnel. I did it outside with just a lab coat, gloves and goggles, but a respirator certainly doesn't hurt. A few things to keep in mind: use minimum sulfuric acid because it will actually dissolve some bromine. If you drop bromine on latex gloves it will get unpleasantly hot, and it can eat through them in a few seconds. I've never dropped any on my skin, but I don't imagine that it is very forgiving. Sodium thiosulfate (aka "hypo") is probably the best thing to neutralize bromine, especially if you have to deal with a medical emergency. It is readily available OTC from photography stores even to this day.

Bromine is a *lot* easier to pipette if you chill the pipette first, and make sure your pipette is "graduated" rather than "serological" for bromine because sulfuric acid will remove the markings from your shiny and expensive Fisherbrand serological pipette. The common Bomex ones that probably half of the members of this board own work well.

[Edited on 17-4-2017 by JJay]

VIOLiN - 17-4-2017 at 14:42

Quote:

I'd just like to point out that it appears that your bromine is wetting the glass. Pure bromine shouldn't do this, so it's likely that yours contains a significant amount of water. Shaking (very carefully) in a sep funnel with a bit of conc. sulfuric acid should fix this problem, and bromine treated thusly should no longer wet the glass.

Thanks for pointing this out, and yes, I agree. They look a little better in person, but I think that they are still slightly wet. This is actually quite interesting... I've made bromine several times now, and each time I have removed water using 98% sulfuric acid. A few times, I have made bromine with woelen's method through electrolysis (by the way, great video MrHomeScientist!) of NaBr, by passing chlorine gas through NaBr (great method for large-scale bromine production, but some BrCl contamination. I once made over 150mL in one "batch" from this method), and also using the KMnO4/H2SO4 method. It is interesting in that when I have done the electrolysis, I have always gotten a very pure/dry bromine product, but the last few times I have made bromine with the KMnO4 method, I have been getting a product that is slightly wet. Obviously, the KMnO4 method uses distillation where water does contaminate the bromine, but I have run it through the sep funnel twice (first time to get the bulk of any water off, and then using a substantial amount of H2SO4). In fact, the last time I made it, I left the H2SO4 and bromine in the sep funnel for a very long time (~2hrs), which is longer than the when I made the bromine via electrolysis. So, I'm not quite sure exactly where I am going wrong...maybe next time I'll have to do the drying step a two or three times. I've never heard of this, but could the glass be a little wet, enough to make the bromine stick? Probably not...

Quote:

Your samples look great, by the way. I really want to try the resin embedding myself one day. How did you make the letter-shaped ampoules? That's an awesome idea!

First of all, thank you! I was originally attempting to make some letters from some glass tubing, but that did not turn out very well! My letters were pretty boxy and ugly, so I went online, and I found a local glass blower who made them for me. If you do try to make some "letter samples" make sure to carefully inspect and maybe test all of the letters! Unfortunately, this last time, I had a letter with a very small crack or hole that I did not see, and bromine leaked out after a few seconds. Also, at the time, I did not have my normal double-glove latex-nitrile combo on because I was going to seal the samples (gloves + fire are really bad!)...bad idea! My hand was not too happy after its encounter with bromine! Well, lesson learned...

And yes, the Br2/H2SO4 drying steps are pretty scary!