Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Source of anhydrous aluminum chloride

symboom - 22-4-2018 at 19:19

So i was reading the compounds in the antiperspirant spray called old spice and it has 40 percent aluminum chloride desolved in a polar solvent butane

I was thinking of making aluminum powder
By reacting lithium with the solution i was going to use magnesium but it is not as reactive

DraconicAcid - 22-4-2018 at 19:53

Aluminum chloride is not dissolved in butane (a non=polar solvent) in Old Spice.

violet sin - 22-4-2018 at 21:07

A quick search seems to show aluminum chloride, aluminum chlorohydrate, aluminum sesquichlorohydrate and some Aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly in deoderants and over the counter deoderants actually... But I saw nothin about dissolved in butane.

I found this odd, as that notion seemed highly unlikely to me at first also. Weird.

------addition-------

Recently looked into some pool chems that can be pricy locally.
One of the flock agents, HTH brand "super green to blue" pool treatment has polyaluminum chloride or aluminum polychloride( saw both while searching). I know it works better than some other brands available here, but because half the price is a few pounds of chlorine it's not affordable. So you could see why it might seem odd various similar agents in deoderant. The aluminum chlorohydrate came up in flocc searches several times.

[Edited on 23-4-2018 by violet sin]

j_sum1 - 22-4-2018 at 21:25

Doesn't butane merely act as a propellant in this situation?

And if you hadn't told me, I would have assumed the active ingredient to be a hydroxide of aluminium.

Amos - 23-4-2018 at 10:56

Hydrated aluminium chloride is a common antiperspirant. Butane is the propellant. The actual solvent as I understand it is a mixture of water and denatured alcohol, so if you want a great big fireball in your lab, go ahead and add lithium to it.

symboom - 23-4-2018 at 16:01

Already tried it no fire ball the white aluminum chloride just sat on top of it. Also there is no water or alcohol and another poster is right butane is just a propellant i dont think it is desolved in it. By the way i just used the lithium from button cell batteries much easier to open and i only need a small amount.
Aluminum chloride
Although it is soluble in hydrogen chloride, ethanol, chloroform, carbon tetrachloride none of these can be used with lithium
Not sure if benzene reacts with lithium
slightly soluble in benzene

Melgar - 23-4-2018 at 19:56

If you want anhydrous aluminum trichloride, I just ordered a kilogram of it, which is a great deal more than I ever plan to use. It hasn't arrived yet, but the order has been processed.