Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Interesting uses for Barbital?

FnordOfNothing - 9-10-2017 at 05:15

Hi all,
I have an acquaintance who works in a blood testing lab. They are throwing out some old lab stuff and reagents which I could get cheaply. Among them is some sodium diethylbarbiturate for making buffer solutions for electrophoresis.
Now I'm not that interested in electrophoresis and the substance is controlled where I live, so I wouldn't want to keep it around just for the sake of it. I couldn't find any good ideas what to make with it (online as well as in my literature), so I'd like to ask here, are there any interesting uses for this reagent? (I don't want to use it as a drug, obviously.) To be more precise, can it be used as a precursor for some other useful reagent or are there any interesting reaction mechanisms that can be demonstrated using this stuff? Otherwise I'd have to pass up the offer...
Thanks for your ideas,
Fnord

SWIM - 9-10-2017 at 07:24

"Throwing out some old stuff and reagents which I could get cheaply"

So this blood testing lab discards controlled substances in the garbage and somebody there is willing to fish it out and sell it to you?

Or is the lab itself actually willing to sell controlled substances to random unlicensed acquaintances of their staff?

Some lab.

Is it owned and run by Kratom3million?






FnordOfNothing - 9-10-2017 at 07:31

> So this blood testing lab discards controlled substances in the garbage and somebody there is willing to fish it out and sell it to you?

Yep.

> Is it owned and run by Kratom3million?

Nope.

Care to contribute to the topic?

Texium - 9-10-2017 at 07:42

Quote: Originally posted by SWIM  
"Throwing out some old stuff and reagents which I could get cheaply"

So this blood testing lab discards controlled substances in the garbage and somebody there is willing to fish it out and sell it to you?

Or is the lab itself actually willing to sell controlled substances to random unlicensed acquaintances of their staff?

Some lab.

Is it owned and run by Kratom3million?
I think you may be getting a little over-paranoid in the wake of the trolling.

Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if the OP is telling the truth. Sometimes labs can be surprisingly lax about securing things, especially when it comes to things that they don't need. For what it's worth though, don't bother with the barbital. Anything interesting you could prepare with it is likely also a controlled substance, so it's not worth it.

SWIM - 9-10-2017 at 07:55

Quote: Originally posted by zts16  
Quote: Originally posted by SWIM  
"Throwing out some old stuff and reagents which I could get cheaply"

So this blood testing lab discards controlled substances in the garbage and somebody there is willing to fish it out and sell it to you?

Or is the lab itself actually willing to sell controlled substances to random unlicensed acquaintances of their staff?

Some lab.

Is it owned and run by Kratom3million?
I think you may be getting a little over-paranoid in the wake of the trolling.

Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if the OP is telling the truth. Sometimes labs can be surprisingly lax about securing things, especially when it comes to things that they don't need. For what it's worth though, don't bother with the barbital. Anything interesting you could prepare with it is likely also a controlled substance, so it's not worth it.


I would find it more than surprising if labs weren't legally required to account for scheduled substances in their possession in order to keep their licensing to work with those substances.

And avoid ruinous fines.





[Edited on 9-10-2017 by SWIM]

FnordOfNothing - 9-10-2017 at 07:55

Thanks for the your reply, zts16.

The stuff in the lab has probably been tucked away in the basement for maybe decades and I am of the impression that nobody there knows what it all is or even gives a s**t about it. I could even get sodium azide from there, but no thanks :o

I'll leave the Barbital and take some of the fine glass ware :)

unionised - 9-10-2017 at 08:16

Quote: Originally posted by SWIM  
"Throwing out some old stuff and reagents which I could get cheaply"

So this blood testing lab discards controlled substances in the garbage and somebody there is willing to fish it out and sell it to you?

Or is the lab itself actually willing to sell controlled substances to random unlicensed acquaintances of their staff?

Some lab.

Is it owned and run by Kratom3million?



It's not as if barbital buffers are hat unusual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbital#pH_buffer

SWIM - 9-10-2017 at 09:22

Quote: Originally posted by unionised  
Quote: Originally posted by SWIM  
"Throwing out some old stuff and reagents which I could get cheaply"

So this blood testing lab discards controlled substances in the garbage and somebody there is willing to fish it out and sell it to you?

Or is the lab itself actually willing to sell controlled substances to random unlicensed acquaintances of their staff?

Some lab.

Is it owned and run by Kratom3million?



It's not as if barbital buffers are hat unusual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbital#pH_buffer


Unusual doesn't enter into it.
The controlled nature of this substance he was asking if he should get was what attracted my attention.

2,5 dimethoxyamphetamine used to be as common as dirt in some industries, but I doubt they let the employees take it home with them, or sell it off to their friends.



Morgan - 9-10-2017 at 09:26

Does it keep for decades just out of curiosity?

NEMO-Chemistry - 9-10-2017 at 10:23

Here in the UK there has been alot of news about schools, many have had to call in the bomb squad recently because of stocks of old chems. I have no idea what the chemical was now, but alot of schools still had it from the 70's and 80's.

If your interested then a google should throw the story up on the BBC website, as it was a pretty big news story. Alot of my glassware came from old university departments that were clearing out, i was offered boxs of chems where alot of the labels could hardly be read. I didnt take the chems, mainly because i couldnt fit anything else in the car.

The point is, at least in the UK there is many places that seem to be alot less careful with things than you would imagine.

unionised - 9-10-2017 at 12:06

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry  


The point is, at least in the UK there is many places that seem to be alot less careful with things than you would imagine.

Or not.
The substance was dinitrophenylhydrazine.
It has been used for decades.
Suddenly they somehow realised that you can make it explode.
So, because they are much more careful than they need to be, they got rid of it.

Incidentally, could you hydrolyse barbital then decarboxylate it to something like diethyl acetic acid?
2-ethylbutanoic acid

Not sure it's any real use.

Edit: fixed broken quote

[Edited on 10-9-2017 by zts16]

Sigmatropic - 9-10-2017 at 13:13

That chemical that requires bomb squad disposal is likely picric acid or more likely 2,4-dinitrophenyl hydrazide aka Brady's reagent. My guess is that if there are no heavy metals around, i. e. in the cap or in the liner thereof, they are not really that dangerous. But what worth are guesses in the light of dismemberment.

[Edited on 9-10-2017 by Sigmatropic]
This post is odd, why is it nested in unionized 's post...

[Edited on 9-10-2017 by Sigmatropic]