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Bottles for Acids?

jgourlay - 25-3-2010 at 08:42

Gents, anyone know an economical source for bottles appropriate for acids? This is my ignorance. I have a bottle of highly concentrated Sulfuric, and another of HCl that have been sitting in a fridge for nigh on 10 years now. These are plastic 1 gallon bottles.

Everytime I look in there I get nervous: how long can that plastic last? So I want to put them into glass. I see lots of glass bottles for sale, but I worry about the acid resistance of the cap/cap sealer.

When I do a google search for "glass acid bottles" or similiar, I get prices that are flagrantly stupid. Any suggestions?

12AX7 - 25-3-2010 at 08:59

Is the plastic turning brittle at all? If not, then it doesn't matter.

Now, calcium hypochlorite pool shock, that stuff will turn plastic brittle after a couple of years. I had to repackage mine recently.

Tim

jgourlay - 25-3-2010 at 09:21

I'm paranoid about it because many years ago I had a plastic gallon jug of nitric acid auto-burst on my garage floor. I was away on vacation. In retrospect it is an absolute God given miracle it didn't burn the whole damn house down. Judging from the spooge stain on the concrete the acid puddle stopped running about 3" short of a whole pile of lumber (ie, nitrocellulose).

The subsequent "cloud" of nitric acid horrifically rusted about $10,000 of wood working tools. Every cast iron table (table saw, bandsaw, etc), every blade (VERY high end japanese chisels, plane irons), every hand plane, plus countless handtools were covered in the most unimaginable rust. I literally spent an hour every morning and several hours every saturday for 6 months undoing the damage.

Leaves a man scarred, on the inside.....

mr.crow - 25-3-2010 at 10:14

Holy Jesus!

Was this 70% acid? was it turning yellow or brown at all? I worry about nitric acid decomposing over time and building up pressure.

Standard HDPE polycone caps are fine for acid. Thats what the whole bottle is made out of now. HCl slowly diffuses through plastic and H2SO4 slowly chars it.

kilowatt - 25-3-2010 at 10:29

Well, nitric acid's oxidizing power allows it to damage plastic more than hydrochloric or concentrated sulfuric (not to be confused with fuming sulfuric, as that WILL attack most plastics even HDPE). Concentrated sulfuric even will remove some organics from plastics (even HDPE) contributing to the dark brown impurity found in drain cleaner varieties. I would be just as worried about storing these things in glass bottles though due to breakage. I've had glass bottles develop cracks for no obvious reason. I guess the only options for nitric, fuming sulfuric, and other oxidizing acids are glass or teflon, but all plastics seem to be somewhat permeable by the highly volatile hydrogen halides even if there is no reaction.

My conclusion:
If you are trying to keep reagent grade chemicals, 10 years in a plastic bottle has already rendered them no longer reagent grade, and a few more years won't hurt anything. Either way you go, glass, HDPE or Teflon (which IMO are the only viable storage materials for any chemical period, even water), if you are worried about leakage and damage to stuff you could just keep it in a larger container with excess calcium hydroxide or something. A less reactive scrubber like zinc oxide granules may be safer in case of catastrophic failure and spillage.

[Edited on 25-3-2010 by kilowatt]

agorot - 25-3-2010 at 12:30

Have you ever come across a company that sells teflon bottles to the general public at reasonable prices? The cheapest I've found for a 500mL bottle is 90 USD.

kilowatt - 25-3-2010 at 13:09

No. I have seen them on ebay for a lot less than that though! It's pretty much the only reasonable source as far as I know, unless you get lucky and obtain one somehow. I wouldn't ever count on finding one bigger than 1L. Glass lined steel tanks are often used in industry for storing bulk chemicals, but those are obscenely expensive.

hissingnoise - 25-3-2010 at 14:33

I have 2.5L 'Safebreak' bottles for nitric and sulphuric acids - they have teflon inserts in the caps, making them the ideal oxidising acids containers.
Don't know where you'd get them now though - I got mine from a labtech friend many years ago. . .

crazyboy - 25-3-2010 at 16:45

Cynmar sells very affordable glass reagent bottles. I purchased a few recently and I am quite happy. Just a bit of silicon vacuum grease on the joint and they make quite a tight seal for a chemically resistant container. From 60ml to 2.5L

http://www.cynmar.com/SearchByKeyword.aspx?word=reagent%20bo...
http://www.cynmar.com/item_detail.aspx?ItemCode=11555317
http://www.cynmar.com/item_detail.aspx?ItemCode=11555316

kilowatt - 25-3-2010 at 17:09

Are you sure they will sell to individuals? They say that they do not sell chemicals to individuals, and most companies that won't do that won't sell anything to individuals.

crazyboy - 25-3-2010 at 17:27

Quote: Originally posted by kilowatt

Are you sure they will sell to individuals? They say that they do not sell chemicals to individuals, and most companies that won't do that won't sell anything to individuals.

I have purchased from them several times as an individual. I have never purchased chemicals from them. I registered some time ago but I don't believe they ask for a company name, if they do just make something up.

Skyjumper - 30-3-2010 at 15:53

According to my Flinn Scientific Chem and Bio catalog reference 2009, only Nitric will really attack plastic (never store conc. nitric in plastic) They use PVC coated 2.5ltr bottles that contain the break if the bottle is dropped. (Nice feature.)

Lambda-Eyde - 30-3-2010 at 16:29

Quote: Originally posted by Skyjumper

According to my Flinn Scientific Chem and Bio catalog reference 2009, only Nitric will really attack plastic (never store conc. nitric in plastic) They use PVC coated 2.5ltr bottles that contain the break if the bottle is dropped. (Nice feature.)

If you by concentrated mean azeotropic HNO<sub>3</sub> (65-70%), then you're wrong. I have seen it supplied in HDPE containers.

FUMING nitric acid is a completely different beast to tame, however...

Jor - 30-3-2010 at 17:53

In my opinion nitric should never be in plastic.

But if I have a choice, I always buy HCl in plastic (i can buy both reagent grade in glass and plastic for the same price), because I don't want to drop a glass bottle of 37% HCl, wich would likely cause a deadly cloud of HCl to rise. HCl is no problem in HDPE.

I'm not sure about the H2SO4. I have heard people say that HDPE is very slowly attacked by the acid, but it won't break when you drop it, so I still prefer it to glas. I have a HDPE H2SO4 bottle and it's still fine. I store it in a secondary containment tray. Even if it leaks it's no big deal, as it does not fume and as long as there are no unknowing people or animals walking around you won't have issues with the H2SO4, I'm almost sure.

And I really like plastic bottles because they pour much more easily. It's much easier to spill some annoying drops when pouring from glas!

Skyjumper - 30-3-2010 at 18:06

My reagent bottles have a Teflon lip which makes pouring wicked easy. According to my refference. When [Nitric acid] is stored for a long period, it gradually destroys the cap. and under Hazard Alert: Concentrated Nitric acid will attack and destroy metals and most plastics; never store concentrated nitric in a plastic bottle. TLV 5.2mg/ m^3

Mildronate - 2-4-2010 at 06:59

I use glass botlles (aldrich chloroform) what i get from my job. Is that big problem to get botlles?

Mildronate - 2-4-2010 at 07:33

For HNO3 i use botlle with glass cap

[Edited on 2-4-2010 by Mildronate]

Skyjumper - 2-4-2010 at 12:30

I still use plastic caps. and I have some 6m stored in a plastic nalgene bottle (chemlab nalgene, not drinking nalgene), the rest in 2.5ltr and a 500ml glass bottles

UnintentionalChaos - 3-4-2010 at 16:02

Is making teflon liners for screw-cap glass bottles really so complicated?

Skyjumper - 3-4-2010 at 16:36

Apparently so. My supplier doesn't have them.

UnintentionalChaos - 3-4-2010 at 17:53

Quote: Originally posted by Skyjumper

Apparently so. My supplier doesn't have them.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&...

Bring your own scissors.

SWilkin676 - 7-4-2010 at 08:49

We've been discussing the topic of glass vs plastic storage containers a lot lately. My partner favors glass for many things and your post is probably making his point, except I'm trying to evaluate the relative likelihood of a bottle getting knocked off the shelf and broken vs plastic one breaking down.

Glass

Fluorinated HDPE

The best bottles I've purchased so far have been brown amber with a plastic coating outside to help prevent chips.

I ordered some of these for storing stuff like ethanol and methanol. Don't know how good they are and will have to order caps.

Suzee

SWilkin676 - 7-4-2010 at 12:16

Quote: Originally posted by UnintentionalChaos

Quote: Originally posted by Skyjumper

Apparently so. My supplier doesn't have them.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&...

Bring your own scissors.

Teflon don't stick so easy so you'd need special glue to attach it to the inside of the cap to keep it in place. They do make such a thing but by the time you buy all that would be cheaper to buy the caps ready made.