Review: buying Cobalt (II) chloride on alibaba

After spending years trying to refine cobalt from battery waste, I finally decided to buy some proper cobalt source to save some HP.

Being a huge Aliexpress buyer, I decided to try alibaba, and it was an excellent idea. Since I commit to spreading the word about the very few sellers and individuals who are going to help home chemists, I'm writing this review.

The company is Famouschem, an alibaba premium company with trade assurance (alibaba's customer protection, fundamental for a newbie like me!). I have received top assistance from the sales manager, Jack, who guided me through all of the procedure, replied to my dumb questions and even made me a discount after learning that I'm a private buyer with limited budget.

I ended up buying 1 kg (minimum order quantity) of 98.5% CoCl₂ hexahydrate for around 100€, s&h included in the final price. Packaging was very solid, shipping was crazy fast through a courier, and took about 3 days. The company also provided me with an up-to-date certificate of analysis.

Considering that ebay and small websites usually offer the same product for 2-4x the price, Sigma and other companies offer it for 8-10x the price, it was a really good bargain that will hopefully keep me busy with coordination compounds for a good while.

*The white dots in the photo are small shiny crystals

Sorry but 98.5% is not surprising at all. A quick overview:

I paid around 100 €/kg.

Sigma-Aldrich sells 255599 Cobalt(II) chloride hexahydrate ACS reagent, 98% for 624 €/kg.

Aldrich also sells 769495 Cobalt(II) chloride hexahydrate, ≥97% for 870 €/kg.

If you want to step up the game, Sigma-Aldrich sells 31277 Cobalt(II) chloride hexahydrate
puriss. p.a., ACS reagent, reag. Ph. Eur., 98-102% for almost 2000 €/kg.


From what you can read in the certificates, which are pretty much comparable (except for the last, obviously) most of the impurities are iron, copper and sodium.
I'm pleased there's so little nickel and iron in what I bought tbh.


Let's remember that even though universities and big customers get a 30-50% discount on catalogue prices, we (at least I) don't.