Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Sourcing Reagents in Australia

Sourcing Reagents in Australia

AHBioChem - 8-4-2017 at 04:25

Awkward first post but gotta start somewhere

I've noticed many stores around the Sydney area really don't sell 1L-5L amounts of sulphuric acid (at least not for reasonable prices, moflo is $55/L) which I need to catalyse a variety of reactions and synthesize some intresting organics and crap. I've only seen phosphoric, nitric and sulphuric in 5L bottles for about $30-50 which is way too much and way too expensive for me to buy alone. Also need H2O2 which i'm struggling to find in 1L 30% for anything less than $70.
Seen other posts but much of the info is outdated.
Any help would be appreciated!

j_sum1 - 8-4-2017 at 06:49

At the risk of being inquisitive, what sort of chemistry are you doing and at what kind of volumes?

I survived for a long time making my own H2SO4 by electrolysis of copper sulfate. I got pretty good at it. Do a search on my posts to find my procedure.
Argentscientific will sell you some. Member adk runs it and drops in here from time to time. Rungood labs is another option. I don't think they stock H2SO4 as a standard line but you could ask. Both are located in/near Sydney IIRC. With something like sulfuric acid it is the shipping that kills more than the product itself. I would say if you can get 5L for $50 you are onto a bargain.

There are some companies selling industrial cleaning chemicals that stock pure sulfuric acid as a drain cleaner. That was where my last purchase came from.

I understand that H2O2 can be obtained from hydroponics stores. I haven't checked my own local sources.

Bottom line is that building up a stock of liquid reagents is an expensive exercise. If you lack funds it will just take some time. The most economical options are not likely to be from the same source. I recommend having a good search on this site -- these questions get asked and discussed with regularity and you are likely to find other helpful information on the way.

Mesa - 8-4-2017 at 18:25

my local chem supplier in newcastle(forget the name atm) sells 2.5L sulphuric for $55 to anyone who walks in the front door. If you can be bothered making the trip up....

AHBioChem - 9-4-2017 at 02:44

Mainly using for the production of different organic compounds like nylon, rayon, methyl anthranilate, octenol, resorcinol etc with a avg. yield around 20-150g I'll research the electrolysis of CuSO4 but it seems to be borderline on producing too little low conc. acid. Also found out a variety of compounds were at this garden supply store so that'll be useful. Anyone have any experience with pool and plumbing stores though? Thanks for the help!

adk - 9-4-2017 at 19:54

I can assist with chemicals (Argent Scientific is located in Sydney), but there is a very good reason why suppliers will not repack things like acids unless absolutely necessary, or unless they have the capability to automate the process (i.e. a dangerous goods bottling line).

The time required to create GHS compliant labels (now required by law, insurance and couriers), find suitable bottles / closures, repack and then clean up and also the fact that you are opening larger bottles of chemicals and potentially contaminating the contents. There are already countless other suppliers selling pre-filled 500 mL bottles of chemicals and there is very little, if any margin in it if doing low volume [by hand] anyway.

Sometimes people will ask us (Argent Scientific is my company, by the way) if we can re-package these sorts of chemicals into 100 - 500 mL containers but then are puzzled when the price is significantly higher than if they purchased a 2.5L bottle, drum or some other larger container which can be obtained from a distributor.

For high value compounds where a typical customer might buy 50-100 g of something that is $1000 or more per kilo or another high value item purchased in very small quantities it's no problem and we do this all the time.

As far as I know, the only Sydney-based supplier that sells common chemicals "over the counter" is Lab Supply in Mascot. Their prices are relatively high but they keep a large stock of common chemicals, usually obtained from Ajax (now part of Thermofisher) or Chem Supply (a large but independent importer/distributor located in Adelaide).

If you have a legitimate business; Bacto Laboratories, Thermo Fisher, Sigma-Aldrich, Merck & several others can help you with common chemicals.

That all said and done, I am always willing to help out hobbyists where possible and many members of the Science Madness community have been buying from Argent Scientific for a number of years (thanks!)

Feel free to get in touch - e-mail is best: sales@argentscientific.com

Oh, and we just launched a new website: www.argentscientific.com and have an online store with an extensive (75,000 items) catalogue of organic & biological reagents coming soon.

Cheers,

Andrew

[Edited on 10-4-2017 by adk]

CalAm - 9-4-2017 at 22:01

Quote: Originally posted by Mesa

my local chem supplier in newcastle(forget the name atm) sells 2.5L sulphuric for $55 to anyone who walks in the front door. If you can be bothered making the trip up....

Another Newcastle member here, i opened an account with them and am able to request pretty much anything besides schedule 1 precursors. They are alright with pricing on most of their stuff but watch out for them trying to sell you the AR grade and not LR if you don't tell them exactly which one you want.

Tried to get me to pay $88 (including 10% tax) for 2.5L AR grade methanol.

AHBioChem - 10-4-2017 at 06:21

How come chromates require EUDs from chemical suppliers? Local pottary store has dichromate and chrome oxide though.

CalAm - 10-4-2017 at 07:40

Quote: Originally posted by AHBioChem

How come chromates require EUDs from chemical suppliers? Local pottary store has dichromate and chrome oxide though.

" Besides the nitrates of metals and ammonium nitrate, there is a limited number of other substances capable of serving in a sufficiently energetic manner as oxygen providers. A few chlorates, perchlorates, permanganates and chromates almost complete the list. "

Possibly due to the risk of the chemical being used to make explosives, or the carcinogenic health dangers of chromates. Australia is pretty restrictive on any chemicals that can be used in explosives or drugs.

For KCLO4 / KCLO3 / NaClO3 / NaClO4 you need a EUD as well and the price is usually very high, At least from my experience with the local chemsupply warehouse.

adk - 10-4-2017 at 19:40

Quote: Originally posted by CalAm

Quote: Originally posted by AHBioChem

How come chromates require EUDs from chemical suppliers? Local pottary store has dichromate and chrome oxide though.

The price reflects the regulatory problems (or solutions?) required to prevent these chemicals being obtained by terrorists et al.

Annual fees in NSW:

- Security sensitive substances import licence - $2531
- Security clearance for all staff associated with the sale and distribution; $168 per person
- Annual fee to store SSDS, buy SSDS, supply SSDS - several thousand dollars
- Inspection of premises used to store SSDS
- Insurance for storing SSDS - increased risk of fire, theft and injury.
- Approved record keeping procedures & audit of substances
- Reporting to Police and SafeWork/WorkCover

So, to do this legitimately one has to spend a lot of money. If you don't do it legitimately you will definitely have very big problems on your hands.

As for Chromium and associated heavy metal compounds; the main problem is environmental release rather than use as chemicals in drug or explosive manufacture. Various licences are required to use these in industry, but i'm not sure what the situation is with small business - e.g. pottery.

I'll have a look into it.

j_sum1 - 20-4-2017 at 00:48

I came across this ad:
http://www.adpost.com/au/business_products_services/13978/

I have not made enquiries and have no idea how good the offer really is or how reliable the supplier or the website is.
But the price seems pretty good.

The volume is more than I can justify. But if there are enough interested parties I could do a Praxichys-style redistribution.
Give me some feedback and if there are others on board I will investigate further.

au_business_products_services.13978.1.jpg - 21kB

Panache - 29-4-2017 at 14:03

Quote:

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

I came across this ad:
http://www.adpost.com/au/business_products_services/13978/

I have not made enquiries and have no idea how good the offer really is or how reliable the supplier or the website is.
But the price seems pretty good.

The volume is more than I can justify. But if there are enough interested parties I could do a Praxichys-style redistribution.
Give me some feedback and if there are others on board I will investigate further.

Bahhhh!!!!!! Why did you go and post something like that!!! I'll be thinking about it for days now even though it's the last thing I need!

j_sum1 - 29-4-2017 at 15:04

It's probably a no-go anyway.

The website is full of people openly advertising both drugs and precursors. Also homeopathy and quackery. And so I don't hold high hopes for any professinal service. The ad itself is very old and has not been updated in over a year. I made enquiries but have heard nothing back.

AHBioChem - 1-5-2017 at 23:49

I found this supplier:
http://paramountchemicals.com.au/
which sells a variety of fairly high purity raw chemicals like nitric and sulphuric acid, 50% h202, acetone, ammonia and others.
The problem is they sell them in 5 or 10L quantities and that's probably too much for me to use and too much to store around (think about a 10L acid and peroxide spill! yikes!)
I, or someone else could probably distribute/resell though. Let me know what you guys think.

[Edited on 2-5-2017 by AHBioChem]