Sciencemadness Discussion Board - European Sulfuric Acid Ban

European Sulfuric Acid Ban

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teodor - 17-9-2021 at 01:16

I expected that somebody will mention cryptocurrency. Yes, the platform of chemicals exchange which is based on blockchain operations not visible to people who do not participate in the trade is possible. The more strict rules of trading can push some part of society to develop this technology, so instead of control, they will get only shadows.
But I am afraid that amateurs will be not the main users of this system. So, it is better to keep an eye on different social/business/educational groups which we can use for the purpose of legalization in case they will push us to shadow.

arkoma - 17-9-2021 at 08:07

Man, I feel for y'all. Possession ban kicks in in a few months, yes? Glad I've got about 20 litres..............

Tsjerk - 17-9-2021 at 11:11

Quote: Originally posted by Fyndium

Quote: Originally posted by WolfPack

For instance, Fyndium and others have suggested to register a company, because it should be almost free as long as it doesn't generate profits. I've been told (and verified) that for some countries this is true, but for others, registering a company or even working as a freelancer isn't exactly cheap, costing up to several thousands of € per year even if your "business" is actively losing money. You've got a calculator for EU countries here: https://freelance.tax/en/my/EUR/0/month/. The table may take a while to load, but if it doesn't, just click on the "€ 0" to reveal the form field, write 0 again and press enter to recalculate. The important part for each city is the "Sole trader" column. The thing is, you would still need to pay health taxes, social and pension contributions, etc., depending on the case.

I don't know who and how these numbers are calculated, but they seem to exclusively presume that you live off your business.

[Edited on 16-9-2021 by Fyndium]

If you take a closer look you see the numbers are specified and include things like rent.

I have a company in the Netherlands and payed nothing. I only had to do quarterly "paperwork" four times, after which I got a letter that four times 0 means they assume it will stay 0 until I tell them otherwise. I clicked 0 four times and digitally signed for it, which was enough.

WolfPack - 19-9-2021 at 12:02

Quote: Originally posted by Keras

Quote: Originally posted by Herr Haber

Well, you're probably right on your first statement.
Not so sure about the second as a directive is basically a law that supersedes national laws and being a EU law it would probably not be accepted for trial by the EU court of justice.

Quote (from the EU court of justice page): ‘Private individuals can also ask the Court to annul an EU act that directly concerns them.’

I’m convinced we could pretty much ask for an annulation, especially since the licencing mechanism does not give us access to the ‘full-fledged’ material. Every European state grants gun licences to people who practise shooting as a sport. Would they be satisfied if they were granted the ‘carry’ part, but be obliged to use blanks? That’s exactly what's the directive is about.

Good find, Keras. You're right, the CJEU website says that. However, I'm not so sure if an action for annulment can be brought against this regulation now. This briefing, which contains the conditions needed for such an action to be considered for trial, initially gives some hope

Quote:

Acts against which an action for annulment may be brought
List of acts Under Article 263(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the following acts can be subject to an action for annulment:
• legislative acts, in particular regulations and directives;
[...]
Non-privileged applicants
Natural and legal persons
The notion of 'non-privileged applicants' refers to natural and legal persons, i.e. individuals, companies, associations, foundations and any other bodies corporate (endowed with legal personality).

and keeps getting better and better until you reach this part

Quote:

Time limits for bringing an action

The sixth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU lays down the time limits for bringing an action for annulment: two months running from the publication or notification of the act. If a given act was neither published, nor notified, the deadline runs from the moment the applicant gained knowledge about it by other means. The deadline may not be extended, and the Court verifies its observance ex officio (order in case C-498/08 P Fornaci Laterizi Danesi). For the deadline to be met, the action must be lodged at the Registry of the CJEU within the prescribed period (Articles 21 and 52 of the CJEU Rules of Procedure). Under Article 45 of the CJEU Statute an application can be brought for restitution of a deadline, if the applicant shows that by reason of unforeseeable circumstances or vis major they were unable to meet the deadline.

And the regulation itself says:

Quote:

Article 23: Entry into force and application

1. This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

The regulation was publised on the Official Journal of the European Union on July 11th, 2019. So I think it is already too late. But I'm not 100% sure, I'm not a lawyer.

Quote: Originally posted by WolfPack

On a more holistic level, I think one option would be to file a complaint through the European Ombudsman website, [...]

Another possible option would be to get in touch with the department that created the first draft of the directive.

Turns out that, according to this flowchart, the Ombudsman can only accept a complaint if whoever is affected by an EU entity that has already contacted such entity and attempted to solve the issue directly with them first. So these three options must be applied in a given order.

Quote: Originally posted by teodor

Thank you WoflPack, this is a good list of possible actions which could be taken.

My pleasure, glad to be of help. Thank you for your compliment.

Quote: Originally posted by teodor

The situation as I see it is that, at least, in some countries, there is a difference between "law" and "penalty". So some things are illegal but you never (practically) will get fine if you do according to common practice (or will get it if you are "extremely lucky" only).
I think now for amateurs the way to be "behind the law but not accessible to punishment" is the most economical one - we have not so much time ever for hobby and don't like to spend more time on legal issues.
If the situation will get worse we can probably think to create some groups to represent our interests, but now we have not many people who are ready to participate (or pay any fee or spend any time) because of what I mentioned.

I agree with that. Like everybody else here, I just hate when a hobby chemist is unfairly treated as a dangerous criminal. As it is already common knowledge, drug cookers and terrorists typically use common reagents and solvents; when one is forbidden they switch to another one. Taking into account these regulations, at some point every amateur chemist could be legally considered as a criminal. Sometimes the cases get a lot of public exposure, and a lot of people and mass media will just make conjectures, critizise, and shame, making things worse. I saw, back in 2011, the video that PeriodicVideos dedicatd to Xanax's case and you can see some of that in it. I don't like fearmongering, but I just find all of that scary.
About spending time and money, also agree. This is one of the reasons why I considered the Citizens' Initiative as a last resort option (would require lawyers, advertising, ...). But as you said, it is good if at least the information about which options are available is already compiled and discussed, all of that on a single place. Even if that information ends up being useless, it is at least instructive, so the effort it's worth it anyway.

Quote: Originally posted by teodor

The only one practical way, for now, is to join the efforts of some already established groups in similar areas. I know one such group by the way. So we can try to contact them and ask about their experience etc.

That's a good idea. Just curious, are you thinking about amateur rocketry associations?

As I said on my previous post, I checked if the values on the table were correct. I did that by asking friends from other countries. For the same purpose you mention, also asked them, if on their countries or on their mother languages there were forums for hobby chemists, or at least hobby scientists. This is because their members could also be affected by this kind of regulations. We already know Illumina-Chemie in german, but it turns out that for spanish, there is Cientificos aficionados (amateur scientists), for italian there is Myttex Forum, and for french, Futura Sciences and Science Amusante. Some of these have already been mentioned here in SM.

[Edited on 19-9-2021 by WolfPack]

Oxy - 19-9-2021 at 22:24

Quote: Originally posted by WolfPack

I agree with that. Like everybody else here, I just hate when a hobby chemist is unfairly treated as a dangerous criminal.[/rquote]

This is pretty easy to understand why. Those, so called "hobby chemists" are often amateurs interested in energetic materials who:
1) have no knowledge in chemisrty and energetic materials
2) have no experience with handling chemicals and energetic materials
4) have no a safe place to do preparations, storage or doing with them whatever they do
5) like to blow out random things

What's also important, people are scared as they have young children who can easily enter contaminated area or be somehow exposed to dangerous staff.

I don't mind hobby chemistry which is conducted in responsible way without putting all the neighbourhood in danger. But there are some people who just don't care and that's why others are frightened. This is pretty common that a relatively small group of irresponsible people affect the general perspective of something.

And this is sad. Many years ago a hobby chemistry was something interesting. Even if someone didn't liked it it was kind of neutral. Now if people see that someone is making explosives and likes to blow them out on Sunday morning in the nearby are obviously scared if their homes will survive an accident that is likely to happen in amateur, most often improvised lab.

teodor - 20-9-2021 at 03:57

Quote: Originally posted by WolfPack

Quote: Originally posted by teodor

That's a good idea. Just curious, are you thinking about amateur rocketry associations?

No, https://diybio.org/ is what I was keeping in mind.

Quote: Originally posted by Oxy

Quote: Originally posted by WolfPack

I agree with that. Like everybody else here, I just hate when a hobby chemist is unfairly treated as a dangerous criminal.

But keeping and walking dogs possess the same dangers. It is just opinion of the society that keeping dogs is normal and doing chemistry is not. You can find a lot of other examples of groups that contain some irresponsible members. For example, think about Pizza delivery guys. So I don't think this logic can work to understand what is happening.

I think one of our important goals is to promote amateur chemistry. I think here we should be on the same side as universities who plan to find students and grow scientists.

[Edited on 20-9-2021 by teodor]

And if you think what is the difference between pizza delivery, dogs and amateur chemistry - it is very simple. There are many rich or by other way important members of our society who like dogs and pizza. There are also those who like amateur chemistry but they are rich or important enough to do it in their laboratories. And the rest is just people with less amount of money / social status (e.g. as a member of the respectable university) who now will have problems, So, the same social protection which works for dogs and pizza doesn't work for our group.

[Edited on 20-9-2021 by teodor]

Oxy - 20-9-2021 at 11:25

No need for any unnecessary bad emotions, I am here as well.
I am not telling that I am against amateur chemistry as I also the do chemistry in my amateurish lab.
On the other hand I just can look at it from others people perspective. And some of them may be just scared.

There are people amongst us who do their experiments in apartment blocks, I don't care personally. But what would you thought in case if you will be just "normal" one and had a neighbour next doors who do his experiments in his apartment or nearby balcony and all the toxic gases are going directly to your flat? Wouldn't you be scared if you will realize that he posses 2kg of mercury or HgCl2? Or 1 litre bottle of bromine was tripped over and broke? What would you think if you lived there with small kids and uncontrolled explosion happened?

I am really not against any chemistry and personally I think that any elitism here is bad. People here tend to be smart and responsible. But there is a shitload of those who are not.

Please do not compare having a dog with possession of chemicals which can mass-murder all the neighbourhood. Even in professional, fully equipped labs running by experienced chemists accidents are happening, sometimes deadly. At university I heard about PhD student who ran some experiments with some fluoroacetic acid derivative. She spilled some of it, exposed herself by a skin contact and died. Personally I wouldn't touch anything such toxic but if you are not the one who is actually experimenting and you're just his neighbour you can only pray

teodor - 20-9-2021 at 13:54

Oxy, I think that human society is a product of evolution that's why we all must have different opinions. This feature of a society is essential to survive. The question is not who is right and who is wrong (because it depends on the situation) but how to create environment where people with different opinions can coexist.
What you are talking about for me looks like a particular example of complex relations between neighbors. The words "chemistry" and "2kg of mercury" are just illustrative here.
Also, I personally think that praying is an important part of human life, at least for people like me, but we are well balanced with people who believe in bans and rules and that everything can happen just because some people are "irresponsible". Considering that we as a human society probably is developing already 7 million years I respect all the features we have and believe they are important, even if I am unable to understand something.

Should we try to prove that amateur chemistry is evil? Let's make everybody believe that amateurs can make only environmental pollution but not any important breakthrough in medicine or other parts of human life, so let's create the opinion that positive things are coming from big well-established business only. And your neighbor is unable to help society by definition because he is not licensed for doing any positive change for humanity.
Should we try to prove that amateur chemistry is good? Let's tell about the size of industrial pollution and that children chemistry experiments are important. There is no direct relation between those amateur experiments and, let say, available medicine, but there are indirect relations.

Oxy - 20-9-2021 at 21:18

We shouldn't try to prove anything. What I wanted to say is just that I am able to understand why people may be scared. Just that.

teodor - 21-9-2021 at 00:26

Yes, but did you get my point? Do you know people who are seriously scared by dogs? I know, several. And living in a country where people are allowed to walk dogs without muzzles is big trouble for them. One of my colleagues is complaining that it is not allowed to have any personal protection device (in the case of a dog or man attack) in the Netherlands. He sees it as a big problem for him and his children.

I personally do not understand the behavior of these animals well, even having my own in past. Once my own dog seriously bit my hand. I didn't get any comparable damage from any chemistry, ever.

So, the same type of reasoning could be applied to amateur chemists. If we will allow people to grow with chemicals starting from childhood under supervision by parents or friends people will not be scared. This is more about ignorance, you see. And less chemical education for children means more scared people.

I don't say we need chemical education more than dogs. Or dogs more than chemical education. I don't like dogs so much as I love chemistry, so I am not a person to judge.

But I would prefer to clearly see dark lanes in the Milky Way and M33 (the Triangulum galaxy) with my naked eye every clear moonless night even compromising my safety a bit by turning off all lights around me. Just because I feel it is important. The same kind of "light pollution" we spread over all other kinds of natural science now. We just starting to trust our artificial lights more than nature. I see it as the starting of big troubles for the whole society. But who cares about the Milky Way.

[Edited on 21-9-2021 by teodor]

NaK - 22-9-2021 at 05:34

Do you really believe the politicians in their mighty EU castle think that far? There are people in a comittee who should do something against terrorism by banning something. And then every few years they need to show some results. So they think of something that they could ban which wouldn't create outrage or bad PR and doesn't hurt the economy.
I don't think anyone in their right mind believes that this does shit to prevent terrorism. Also most people are probably unaware that this law even exists because - let's face it - who needs sulfuric acid in their day to day life? Most people believe it is impossible to buy any dangerous chemicals anyway so it is also not to please voters.

And almost everyone in parliament voted for it because a) it says "prevents terrorism" on the back and who would vote against that and b) no one gives a shit. No one gave a shit ten years ago, or 20 or 30 or before that. Ordinary people don't need sulfuric acid. So it's banned.

teodor - 22-9-2021 at 06:57

Yes, NaK, you described everything perfectly I think.
But my concern now is more about our community than about politicians.
I tried to prove that we should not ask for excuses from society for our existence. We are not the main source of pollution neither of things like COVID-19, neither or anything which really matters. I was saying that people who do experiments must not be treated as a source of danger, and Oxy said it is the case why he thinks we should be limited in reagents by some "common opinion".
The discussion was about possible actions which we can take to protect things we like, then about acting as a group or society based on common interests, and then Oxy said that some people among amateurs are irresponsible and it is the source of the problem we are trying to deal about.
And I try to show that the real problem is different. Also, I think that any division on "responsible/irresponsible", "energetic/not energetic", "organic/inorganic", "experimenting with dangerous substances/eating vegetables" etc. doesn't meet our goal to form a society that can participate in this game. We should be consolidated by some common goals and everything else we should solve inside our society internally. Drugmakers (people, who are making the money by this business) and terrorists are not from us, but somebody with 2kg of mercury should not be treated as a source of danger for our existence as a group, but as a man who probably just requires some help or advice from the members.

[Edited on 22-9-2021 by teodor]

lolz

karolus28 - 9-11-2021 at 10:53

What a funny fact I discovered recently. If you read the papers posted before, you know that ammonium nitrate is allowed up to around 16% nitrogen concentration(AN is around 34% nitrogen so that's like 50% purity). I live in the land of Po. I went ahead and looked up how are chemichal suppliers dealing with it: they all say you need to put in your company ID and stuff to buy the pure stuff. But I also looked up how are online gardening stores doing and to my surprise 34 % nitrogen ammonium nitrate saltperer fertilizer is available(16% nitrogen is also sold). Auctions which had bigger amounts for sale say you just need to send them personal data and a declaration of use. But overall no one in the gardening industry seems to give a shit. They just don't care and send stuff without any questions. Right now I'm sitting on 8kg's of this stuff. I bought it from here(they're selling per kg but the price per kg is as if you were buying a 25 kg bag): https://allegro.pl/oferta/saletra-amonowa-pulan-34n-1-kg-tra... (also I think that the has doubled(!!!!!!) since the time-3 months ago- I bought it, this prooves that inflation is doing very well in Poland :cool:

ok holy fucking shit the price of fertilizers actually doubled on everything wow Im so happy I bought it 2 times cheaper)

[Edited on 9-11-2021 by karolus28]

Fyndium - 27-12-2021 at 02:33

Many things are put for sale, but they might either voluntarily do some quiet reporting, or their customer data might be checked for any interesting instances. In here, ordering certain stuff may not be an issue, but after DPD dropping the parcel, you might get another visit without the first D also.

Main reason sulfuric acid was banned in certain regions was because it was used in acid attacks. For example UK banned it long before EU, and someone here mentioned that Sweden has also banned it years ago, not sure if for acid or energetic reasons. Second reason was home crafting of energetic materials. The actual fear and track record of using it in terrorist acts is limited, but possible. This prevents most of the acid throwing idiots and most of the (usually minor) home crafters from obtaining it.

karolus28 - 27-12-2021 at 02:46

many acid throwers switch to lye

Ubya - 27-12-2021 at 21:14

Quote: Originally posted by karolus28

many acid throwers switch to lye

others to boiling water.

banning every possible chemical from the consumer market isn't going to solve the issue

Oxy - 27-12-2021 at 21:47

It isn't meant to solve the problem, it's just a populist move made to make people thinking that majestic EU takes care about safety.
In reality it's just another restriction which tightens the control.

Take a look how does the voting in EU Parliament works, it's not even funny as there is no voting. The video is Polish but there is an option to enable English subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y93wPZT9Oqw
I am more and more convinced that the only one EU advantage is a possibility to move across Europe without visa. The rest is total bullshit.

[Edited on 28-12-2021 by Oxy]

Ubya - 28-12-2021 at 02:04

Quote: Originally posted by Oxy

It isn't meant to solve the problem, it's just a populist move made to make people thinking that majestic EU takes care about safety.
In reality it's just another restriction which tightens the control.

Take a look how does the voting in EU Parliament works, it's not even funny as there is no voting. The video is Polish but there is an option to enable English subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y93wPZT9Oqw
I am more and more convinced that the only one EU advantage is a possibility to move across Europe without visa. The rest is total bullshit.

[Edited on 28-12-2021 by Oxy]

No import taxes also.

I kinda understand their move, you can't really stop criminals from acting dumb, anything can be a weapon, but since acids attacks are so covered by the media they feel the right to "limit" the issue by banning chemicals.
It sucks that we are in the crossfire

Fyndium - 3-1-2022 at 02:17

If I could choose, I would keep sulfuric acid otc and have acid throwing and casual street violence face minimum mandatory of 10 years in prison without parole. Those thugs and other gangsta crap are the worst rot of a modern society. Bike thiefs should have 5.

No need to make intellectual and creative hobbies difficult because someone wants to live thug life.

wg48temp9 - 3-1-2022 at 14:37

Quote: Originally posted by Fyndium

If I could choose, I would keep sulfuric acid otc and have acid throwing and casual street violence face minimum mandatory of 10 years in prison without parole. Those thugs and other gangsta crap are the worst rot of a modern society. Bike thiefs should have 5.

No need to make intellectual and creative hobbies difficult because someone wants to live thug life.

Unfortunately it appears long sentences don't necessarily work as deterrents and its expensive. In the UK almost weekly someone dies from a knife stabbing yet the minimum sentence for murder is between 12 to 30 years.

Below are the top ten countries with the highest murder rate and the top ten countries with the lowest. The average ratio (estimated) between the two is more than 100. What if anything can we learn from this.

Data from: Global Study on Homicide 2019

Top 10 Countries with the Highest Murder Rates (per 100k people) in 2017:*
El Salvador (61.7)
Honduras (41.0)
Venezuela (49.9)
United States Virgin Islands (49.3 [2012 data])
Jamaica (56.4)
Lesotho (43.6 [[2016 data]] per 100k people)
Belize (37.8)
Saint Vincent And The Grenadines (36.5 [2016 data])
Saint Kitts And Nevis (36.1 [2012 data])
South Africa (35.7)

Top 10 Countries with the Lowest Murder Rates (per 100k people) in 2017:
Japan (0.2)
Singapore (0.2)
Hong Kong (China) (0.3)
Luxembourg (0.3)
Indonesia (0.4)
Norway (0.5)
Oman (0.5)
Switzerland (0.5)
United Arab Emirates (0.5)
China (0.6)

Fyndium - 5-1-2022 at 14:21

For the record, this will be a long and heated discussion once it gets rolling. Anyway, I'll just content a couple of points.

I know quite well that statistically it is actually the opposite, the lowest sanctions are on countries where there is least amount of crime in the world, and vice versa. For example, nordic countries have remarkably short prison sentences for even more serious crimes, and they have by far the lowest amount of prisoners.

It's not that straightforward though. People wouldn't stop doing crimes if the sentences suddenly dropped. What is true is that harsher sentences do not seem to prevent crimes nearly as much as people have hoped. But, the biggest factor is the socio-economic structure of the society. This explains the vast majority of those numbers. The more issues the society has, the more crime it tends to have. The richest countries literally pay off the poor to stay home and live off welfare if they have no other income, not forcing them to do crimes, if every other card has been turned up. The relationship of organized crime or lack of it with good welfare is strong.

Also, cultural aspects do affect, for example Asian countries are much more collectivistic than many western countries, where individual rights and wrongs are the gold standard. Some countries and cultures seem to have more diplomatic way of dealing with things, while some may have very strong macho culture, where everything has to be beaten up due to honor and stuff like that. And, when stuff gets heated, people want harsher sentences, and this leads to a sort of cycle, where eventually you will anyway get 50 years, steal a candy bar or rape-murder a child, so things escalate much more easier.

Also, in poor countries, there is a bigger interest of keeping the sanctions high enough to discourage people taking the easy way and just stealing everything. In some countries, legal job may pay pennies, but selling drugs will bring you year's worth of income even in days or weeks, if stuff don't go bad. I dare to say, that, for example in Cali, you can shoplift for 900$ and it's a misdemeanor (=fines, and you're fine), but make that same law in South Africa or El Salvador, and half of the country will start career shoplifting the very next day (and by the second day, every shop and store have closed up), because the mothly salary is something like 40$ so in one lift you could get two years' worth of income. I read somewhere that Swedes complained about having too high shoplift threshold of 50€ or something, and remember someone mention in comments that the number in the neighboring country Finland is actually 500€, and they don't seem to have that big of a shoplifting problem. So, the sentencing goes along with the standard of living. The same also works the other way, I have heard that people from very poor European countries have been actually happy to get in western countries' prisons when they've got caught smuggling stuff or something similar, because their living conditions in their home country are so low that even our prisons look like hotels. And they have put up big time against when there has been deportations back to their home country to serve the term.

Some people also want to think that if someone commits a crime against them, they can trust the judicial system will put them away for good, and society thinks that if you lock up the bad-doer for 10 years, they'll be off streets for that 10 years. I'm somewhere in the middle ground, I think everyone deserves a second chance, and first sentences should be much more lenient, especially if done as young, but if you keep that up, the ramp must go high fast to show that in the end, we are serious. But, crimes that do not involve violence should always be in general more lenient than violent crimes. For the most serious offenders, there should be sentencing that allows to lock them up for good.

So, yeah, the "if I was a dictator.." thing was mostly sarcasm, but I still would lock acid throwers and other violent gangsta assholes up for good. Perhaps, if you just act like a thug and do some bad things, but grow up, what I said about the lenient first sentences applies, because this is not that uncommon at all and other means to prevent juveniles from this are much more effective, but I think corroding someone's face permanently and making them blind is a crime almost comparable to a murder.

Crazy_Chemist - 24-3-2022 at 23:10

Concentrated sulfuric acid has long been banned from sale in Sweden, but I had time to order a bottle of battery acid (37.5%) from a less careful company before it was completely forbidden to possess it.

learningChem - 12-6-2022 at 16:03

Well, looks like amateur chemistry is finished in the so called 'european union'. Also, I find it rather funny that this forum has a lot of people willing to make excuses for tyranny. Then again, I guess unchecked political power is well aligned with reductionist materialism. And no, none of these measures are about protecting a very small number of people from 'acid attacks'.

j_sum1 - 12-6-2022 at 22:11

Quote: Originally posted by learningChem

Well, looks like amateur chemistry is finished in the so called 'european union'. Also, I find it rather funny that this forum has a lot of people willing to make excuses for tyranny. Then again, I guess unchecked political power is well aligned with reductionist materialism. And no, none of these measures are about protecting a very small number of people from 'acid attacks'.

[sigh]
We have had this discussion before. The bottom line is that there are restrictions on all sorts of items everywhere. No, there is no consistency. Nor is there any apparent rationale. It stems from unknowing bureaucrats feeling the need to protect their constituents from *dangerous* chemicals.

It is something amateur chemists have had to deal with forever. Some places the restrictions are worse than others. But always, there is some measure of work-around. In this case there are a lot of routes to H2SO4. None of them convenient, but never enough to fully deter those who have a passion for it.

I still have about 50mL of ~70% sulfuric acid painfully electrolysed from copper sulfate and boiled down. It can be done.

woelen - 12-6-2022 at 23:17

Within the rules, there still is space for interesting things.

You can still buy 15% acid, cheaply (e.g. 25 liters of it for 50 euros or so). It can easily be boiled down to 70% or even 80%. Boiling it down to 90+% however is harder.
I even now see sale of NaClO3, as a 30% solution in water. So, there always are places, where you can get things, inside the rules.

Keras - 13-6-2022 at 06:25

Then again, if you have some, you can make more by generating sulphur trioxide and dissolving it into your stash to make oleum that you can then dilute to get 100% acid

clearly_not_atara - 13-6-2022 at 08:54

Quote: Originally posted by woelen

You can still buy 15% acid, cheaply (e.g. 25 liters of it for 50 euros or so). It can easily be boiled down to 70% or even 80%. Boiling it down to 90+% however is harder.

I never saw the problem with commercial acid being 15% or 50% because it's only the part above 80% that is actually hard to dehydrate. But I wondered anyway: can you just evaporate water from sulfuric acid? Can you avoid boiling?

According to Hornung and Giauque (attached), the vapor pressure of water above H2SO4*4H2O (about 58%) at 25 C is 4.795 mmHg = 0.64 kPa, while the vapor pressure of pure water at 25 C is 3.16 kPa. So, at a relative humidity of less than 20%, H2SO4 will spontaneously concentrate all of the way to 58%!

That's not too likely, but even at a more realistic 50%-or-so humidity you should be able to get significant evaporation by just letting a bowl of the stuff sit in the sun. If you go from 15% to 30% you've reduced the solution by nearly half. And that means a lot less volume in the boiling flask and electricity consumed in the process.

Attachment: hornung1955.pdf (369kB)
This file has been downloaded 318 times

learningChem - 13-6-2022 at 14:30

Yes, you can concentrate H2SO4 and it's an interesting exercise in amateur chemistry, but the point is that having concentrated acid is now a 'crime'.

I just came accross this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J-6C6IhfIU

"How I’m dealing with the sulfuric acid ban "

Before watching I thought it was about workarounds for the 'ban' but the guy is actually destroying the acid he has at home. And that's how people who 'obey the law' are supposed to behave. So, no more concentrated sulfuric for amateurs.

karolus28 - 19-6-2022 at 13:05

Just a reminder that in Poland sulfuric acid drain cleaners are still available even online

Hexabromobenzene - 22-6-2022 at 17:20

I was experimenting with the evaporation of a solution of sulfuric acid. I used an old cat litter box with an area of about 0.2 square meters. The initial concentration of sulfuric acid is about 25%. Evaporation time 1.5 months. The temperature in the heated room is 24 degrees. This happened in winter with temperatures in the open air down to -20 degrees Celsius (average -10)

Final acid concentration about 50% (density 1.5)

If you heat the container, you can probably evaporate sulfuric acid up to 70%. Heating cables are well suited as a heater for a plastic polypropylene container.

Evaporation of strong solutions of salts or acids is an extremely long process. Trying on a container with heating will allow you to reduce its area and reduce the evaporation time, as well as increase the theoretical evaporation limit.

P.S Initial volume acid was 3-3.5 liter. Final volume 1 liter

[Edited on 23-6-2022 by Hexabromobenzene]

Fyndium - 29-6-2022 at 12:46

Quote: Originally posted by learningChem

Same goes with private gun ownership.

However, I'm not excusing tyranny. I exclusively stated that by making obtaining things a bit more difficult so the average dumbass is deterred from readily accessing it will already cut off most of the harm.

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