Sciencemadness Discussion Board

DCM OTC 2021

JJay - 22-8-2021 at 21:12

I am away from my lab, and I actually wanted to do a few experiments, and I'm having a lot of trouble finding an OTC source of DCM. Even the chemical supplier sources seem to be charging a lot of money for it. Where is everyone getting their DCM these days?

horuse10 - 22-8-2021 at 23:31

JJay, are you in europe or states ?

Fyndium - 22-8-2021 at 23:35

DCM and TCM are not in sale for consumers in EU area anymore. You must obtain some from a supplier, but luckily there are many.

horuse10 - 22-8-2021 at 23:37

They could probably be found in a Belgium MP for more informations ;)

macckone - 23-8-2021 at 09:11

DCM is banned in paint thinners and removers in quite a few states, mine among them.
That makes it difficult to get in the remaining states.

There is a thread on making it from chloroform.
There is also a thread on isopropyl chloride which will work in most places DCM would.
And of course chloroform is easy to make, which will work most of the places isopropyl chloride won't.
If that won't do it for you, you can still get ether from starter fluid.
Some places have banned tetrachloroethylene but it can still be found in others in automotive electrical cleaner.
Flammable solvents should not be used on electrical parts that may spark for obvious reasons.

JJay - 23-8-2021 at 19:14

I'm in the USA. I have a couple of liters of DCM and several jugs of fine vintages of paint thinner in my lab, but I can't get to any of that right now... I was planning on just using toluene, but chloroform might be a better idea, actually... toluene has a flashpoint slightly above freezing and is harder to remove than chloroform....

enlight - 24-8-2021 at 05:02

LabDirect LLC sells DCM. HiMedia ships to individuals; I think people are sleeping on them. Consolidated chemical sells it by the liter for $28 each.

You can find paint strippers being sold for aviation use that mostly, if not entirely, consist of DCM. I found one that was 10% phenol, 10% benzyl alcohol, and 80% DCM or something close to it selling for $80/gal. That isn't the best price, but if you find those three chemicals useful, it might be worthwhile to distill them from each other.

Small amounts can be found on the typical online auction/retail sites.

DCM tends to be pricy, so if you use it often, invest in a rotovap.

Dr.Bob - 24-8-2021 at 16:33

JJay where in the US are you now? I have lots of old DCM based paint stripper left from some large projects in the past. If anyone ever needs some triethylamine, I have some triethylamine HCl salt as well, that could be freebased and distilled for good TEA. If there is anyoine in the NC area that needs chemicals, I have some old ones left that I need to find a new home for.

JJay - 24-8-2021 at 17:32

Right now? Oklahoma City, but I'll be in Chicago in a couple of days. I definitely need some chemicals, and I can head to NC some weekend in the near future. I would be interested in TEA.

macckone - 24-8-2021 at 20:00

Yeah there are places to get it but nowhere cheap and there are other alternatives.
DCM is basically a safer alternative to ether or isopropyl chloride. Both of which are very flammable.
It is also slightly less reactive than isopropyl chloride but isopropyl chloride appears to have a lower toxicity profile.
Although from a practical standpoint, neither is likely to kill you if you don't use them in a confined space.

JJay - 24-8-2021 at 21:52

I like DCM for doing nonpolar extractions because it is (or was) cheap, non-flammable, quite inert, and easy to evaporate. Even if it's not cheap, it still has some good properties, but it's definitely less attractive if it's expensive.

It doesn't form explosive peroxides like diethyl ether, but it can form detectable amounts of phosgene. When I store DCM, I add about 1% ethanol as a stabilizer to neutralize any phosgene that might form.

I am actually not at all familiar with isopropyl chloride and will look into it, but if it is flammable and not cheap, I would probably not use it without a specific requirement.

I guess the cheapest way to get a hold of a nonpolar extraction solvent is to distill gasoline... and maybe add a few purification steps.... Working with DCM is a lot safer, though, and it's usually easy to recycle.

Dr.Bob - 25-8-2021 at 12:24

JJay,

if you can swing by the Raleigh area of NC sometime, I can meet up with you and help you get chemicals. I have lots of old solvents and old chemicals, most of which should still be good, some might need a quick distillation. I am slowly getting rid of somethings, as I don't have the time right now to do much, but I have access to more if needed, so I can swap, sell, or donate most chemicals. Same goes for most other people I am familiar with. I still have some flash grade silica gel and other chemicals I am happy to part with as well.

Bob

earpain - 9-9-2021 at 18:48

Quote: Originally posted by Dr.Bob  
JJay,

if you can swing by the Raleigh area of NC sometime, I can meet up with you and help you get chemicals. I have lots of old solvents and old chemicals, most of which should still be good, some might need a quick distillation. I am slowly getting rid of somethings, as I don't have the time right now to do much, but I have access to more if needed, so I can swap, sell, or donate most chemicals. Same goes for most other people I am familiar with. I still have some flash grade silica gel and other chemicals I am happy to part with as well.

Bob



Bob:
There are no words that can describe your contribution to this community and the authentic love for chemistry.
Stated with utmost sincereity.

BTW, you had sent me some of that lovely column grade silica. Do you happen to know the specs on it?
Can I buy some more?
I still want ALL of your broken mantles, mantle-stirrers, and hotplate stirrers.
Especially if it's the heating function that's nor working.
You also sold me one tiny stirbar, oval, meant for 100ml or smaller, 14/10 flasks.

It has outlived every stirbar ive bought since then, there is clearly something very different in it!

In another glassware seller's page, I posted stuff I was looking for based on his pics. I'll quote here as well:
Quote:

Greetings! Beautiful collection. Looks like it's all very clean and structurally sound.
-In a few parts of the pics I can tell the size of the joints, but mostly it's hard to tell if i'm looking at a pile of 24/40 or 19/x (24/40 preferred)

Could you be more specific about what 'new price' is being used for reference. I'm sure you understand what I mean (Chemglass catalog price, or amazon, etc.)

I would be interested in a few of your big flasks if possible. I think i saw a few 1L, a 2L, RBF's.
I would love a large sep funnel. 1L or larger.
Some of the adapter odds and ends have my interest as well. Like a strait tube with teflon stopcock.

Do you think you could do such an order for cheaper than my favorite scientific resell warehouses in my area?
I'm all the way in Boston btw.

Ok maybe depending on price one of those fancy condensers have my curiosity.

Thanks!

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=157822...

Sadly I can't drive down to NC anytime soon

Thank you! And as always, take your time on the response

macckone - 10-9-2021 at 07:37

JJay,

Isopropyl chloride is readily produced from zinc, HCl and isopropyl alcohol.
Very easy to make as the product readily evaporates driving the reaction forward.
And the ingredients are about as cheap as you can get.

The problem is that it is much more flammable than DCM but not nearly as bad as ether.

earpain - 11-9-2021 at 20:16

Quote: Originally posted by macckone  
JJay,

Isopropyl chloride is readily produced from zinc, HCl and isopropyl alcohol.
Very easy to make as the product readily evaporates driving the reaction forward.
And the ingredients are about as cheap as you can get.

The problem is that it is much more flammable than DCM but not nearly as bad as ether.



Iso Chloride:
Boiling point 35.74 °C (96.33 °F; 308.89 K)
Solubility in water 0.334 g/100 ml at 12.5 °C
Solubility in ethanol miscible
Solubility in diethyl ether miscible

hey i dig those figures!
So to me, DCM has probably 5 or so special features that make it very desirable for post reaction work up and isolation:
- super low boiling point - check
- bottom puller - ha i'm guessing no since the density is ~ .8 something
- since DCM has a S.G. of 1.25 and chloroform of 1.5, and also probably...(just erased a paragraph) ok I don't know why, but, it very aggressively will pull organic substrates out of alcoholic or water/alcohol that many reactions are done in, without any issues of inter-miscible emulsified 1000X yield loss, etc. Thus many first year text books say if there's alcohol in the mixture, before doing a solvent/solvent extraction, just boil off the alcohol. Gee thanks!
Definitely not diethyl ether, but simple alkanes are good for this.
-special properties as a special reaction solvent: aprotic and just a liiitle bit polar. Dissolves some inorganic and/or ionicaly bonded salts.

But wow 25C, i gotta look more into this!

Also, if you're in the US of A, I discovered some spectacular news. I'm very sorry as I'm not sure if these automotive shops are nationwide chains or not,
but:
NAPA auto parts not only do they have real vacuum pump oil,
they have the old school starter fluid! Checked up-to-date MSDS< 50% - 60% diethyl ether for the cheap NAPA brand starter fluid.
This is a brick and mortar store, but most of their business i should note, is delivering specific automotive parts to repari shops. So they are -mostly- B2B. but hey, they'll deliver to your home same day!

Pep Boys:
Haha they have a starter fluid called "Extra strong" or soemthing like that.
MSDS says 70% diethyl ether. Good people=D

Also the indexing filter options for their search function allows you to only see 'High VOC' haha

Amos - 12-9-2021 at 05:55

Hey JJay, I'm having similar issues when I stay in the city proper, but when I head out into the countryside to hike, some of the older, more independent hardware stores still sell the old Sunnyside brand methylene chloride thinner. Usually runs about $13/qt. I don't think that corporation is still manufacturing it, but what remains on the shelves might get you some more for the time being.

What drives me CRAZY is that all of the product on the shelves at most retailers, including tens of gallons at the Lowe's I used to work at, have now been thrown into drums and are being expensively disposed of as hazardous waste. What an utter disgrace.

[Edited on 9-12-2021 by Amos]

JJay - 12-9-2021 at 15:54

I will definitely check out some hardware stores in the countryside. I've found some pretty cool old stock chemicals at hardware stores, and I think checking out the small ones is an excellent idea.