After that date, there is a grace period, in which you can use up your acid (when the previous regulation for HNO3 came, there was a grace period of
18 months). After the grace period, owning conc. H2SO4 also will be illegal.
This kind of regulations indeed is a nuisance. I 'solve' the issues as follows:
1) HNO3 I make when needed. I have an all-glass NS19/NS24 distillation setup with 50 ml and 100 ml flasks. Very nice to make small quantities of HNO3
(e.g. 25 ml of azeotropic acid from a mix of H2SO4, water and KNO3). No need to store HNO3, just make it and use it when needed.
2) H2O2 still is available at 12% concentration. For most experiments that's enough. Freezing out allows making 20% H2O2 without too much trouble,
with a little more effort I could go up higher. Again, I can do that in quantities of a few tens of ml. I actually never needed this up to now.
Stockpiling on concentrated H2O2 is not possible anyway, the stuff decomposes in a few years.
3) Chlorates I make from KCl or NaCl. On my website is a detailed description on how to make small quantities (one batch is appr. 30 grams) by means
of electrolysis. Chlorates can be interesting for certain demos and as oxidizer in aqueous solution.
4) Perchlorates still can be purchased, only the sodium and potassium salts are illegal (especially the potassium salt easily can be used for making
explosives). The ammonium salt still is available, albeit somewhat expensive (but not prohibitively so). Perchloric acid also still is available, but
unfortunately that is very expensive. Commercial ammonium perchlorate is slow-burning, so not really suitable for making exposives. There also is
ultrafine particle material, but that form of NH4ClO4 is not available for the general public and also nearly impossible to make at home. I have
another application of NH4ClO4 in mind: I am still searching for a means of making nice pure HClO4 from NH4ClO4.
5) Nitromethane is something which will be beyond my reach. It be so. I know of no relatively easy method of making this from other easy to obtain
chemicals.
6) When the concentration of H2SO4 is limited, then I'll store that in concentrations, which are allowed and if I need a higher concetration for a
certain experiment, I'll have to boil down a little bit of acid. A nuisance, but can be done easily.
So, my strategy is basically to not store illegal compounds (not at all, or just in mini-quantities, just enough for one or two experiments I plan to
do within a few days). I make these chemicals from other legal chemicals, when I need them for experiments. Only nitromethane is something beyond
reach. The really determined home chemist still can do many interesting things, even with the limitations of the current regulations. Having this kind
of regulations also has a positive side-effect. It makes people more creative and forces people to build up more knowledge and experience in doing
practical chemistry. |
No EOD was
present, while everone, including undergraduates, were messing around with these dangerous and highly illegal chemicals, in sometimes absurdly
dangerous ways! How does this work insurance wise? Is it that these labs have a permit as professional lab user? For 50 bucks anyone here can buy a
KVK pas and be listed as a company and order every chemical you like from what I've read. WTF?
