I think that all good suppliers every now and then make mistakes or have less than ideal purity of their products. Overall, I am happy with Onyxmet's
products, but I am equally happy with Chemcrafts' products. With both of these suppliers I indeed had a disappointment once, but that was only once:
- Onyxmet had MnCl2.2H2O, a beautiful bright pink solid (much brighter than the more common MnCl2.4H2O). But when I received it, it appeared to be
adultered with and a pink dye was added. I mentioned this to Tom and he made his excuse and investigated his supplier.
- Chemcraft sold V2O4, a quite uncommon oxide of vanadium (normally you can buy V2O5). V2O4 is a dark blue, nearly black solid and I now how some from
another supplier. Chemcraft's material was dark green with a brownish hint. While experimenting with it I found out that the material contained a lot
of vanadium in +5 oxidation state and I think that it is some indeterminate mix of V2O4 and V2O5.
I purchased mainly display samples from Onyxmet (e.g. elemental As, 3N and 5N in old containers with original labels, many binary compounds). From
Chemcraft I purchased some display samples, but mostly chemicals for experimenting. |