Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Found some Fisher Chems locally - how are these prices?

RogueRose - 7-2-2018 at 13:51

Alost all were purchased in mid 2015 and maybe Methanol in early 2016. The following are listed as what he wants minimum and may be "delivery charge" and I'm not sure about shipping. The number in front of the item is the quantity available. They are all in amber Fisher bottles and they look legit.

4-Hexane 4L $110 per bottle ACS Specs for HPLC probl expired too
5-Methanol 4L $85 per bottle Optima LC/MS
3-Acetonitril 4L $200 per bottle Suitable UHPLC-UV expire 5-2017
4-Acetic Acid-Glacial 500ml $14 per bottle - aldehyde Free/sequencing > 99.7%
2-Hydrochloric Acid 500ml $15 per bottle 2N solution - exp 7/2017
4-2 Propanolol, 1 liter $39 per bottle - Suitable for LC/MS applications exp 5-2017
1-Potassium Hydroxide 500gm $20 per bottle - Cert ACS pellets
1-Ammonium Acetate, 500gm $70 per bottle HPLC Grade - Meets ACS Specs Crystaline

I'm wondering if these are exceptionally good prices for Fisher products, or if similar products can be gotten on Ebay (many claim 99%+ purity) but they don't have the massive markup of Fisher.

I know I can get Methanol for $2-10 per gallon depending upon how much is purchased and it is supposed to be extremely pure, but I'm sure it isn't pure enough to run LC/MS and such as the solvent though, so this stuff is probably needed for that.

As far as the expiretion dates, I'm curious about that. What happens, do free radicals form or something and things start to break down?

NEMO-Chemistry - 7-2-2018 at 14:02

Yes and NO, if in date then yes great prices as he could sell anywhere, they are out of date therefore worth purely what the market will pay.

Make an offer with 30% off the asking price. Dosnt matter who makes it, its out of date and worthless to non amateurs. To us its gold, but why pay rock star prices for has beens

[Edited on 7-2-2018 by NEMO-Chemistry]

RogueRose - 7-2-2018 at 15:33

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry  
Yes and NO, if in date then yes great prices as he could sell anywhere, they are out of date therefore worth purely what the market will pay.

Make an offer with 30% off the asking price. Dosnt matter who makes it, its out of date and worthless to non amateurs. To us its gold, but why pay rock star prices for has beens

[Edited on 7-2-2018 by NEMO-Chemistry]


Thanks, I'm not even sure what some of these would be used for like the Ammonium Acetate, acetil Nitrile or Hexanes (it has an "s" at the end, is that normal, I thought it was just Hexane).

he listed the normal prices (maybe what he paid) and it was at least 2x the prices listed above, so I think he already thinks he is giving a great deal.

I also came across this:
sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione dihydrate - 99%+ as a pool shock. I didn't find much about it doens't come up in a search on this site. Can it be used as a chlorine generator like TCCA of DCCA?

NEMO-Chemistry - 7-2-2018 at 15:46

Hexanes has to do with all the isomers etc I think, which is why you get n-hexane meaning some kinda mix of hexanes. So your hexanes I think is what non posh people who cant afford posh chems call n hexane.

If you wanna give your money away fine, offer 30% lower he has two options. at some point if you go up in 2,5% amounts he will cave or file a stalker complaint

[Edited on 7-2-2018 by NEMO-Chemistry]

SWIM - 7-2-2018 at 16:24

N-hexane is a straight chain. No branches.

Hexanes means a mix of isomers that include other hexane isomers.
Some ligroin is hexanes, and hexanes as a mixture answers pretty well for petroleum ether too.

Those prices look high to me for expired, but he'll probably deal as said above.

I believe Acetonitrile might be much in demand around here as it can be tough to get. Don't get any on your skin.

EDIT: You should probably ignore my opinion about price. Used chems are mighty cheap here on the edge of silicon valley. My perspective is probably a little warped by that.





[Edited on 8-2-2018 by SWIM]

Dr.Bob - 7-2-2018 at 17:10

Those prices are high, even for Fisher. I would not pay more than 30% for any of those.

The solvents don't go bad, but they may absorb water, mostly for the acetonitrile, and the KOH will absorb water and CO2 from the air. Should not be any problem for HPLC or most other lab uses, just can't use in a clinical lab.

You can buy perfectly good methanol and 2-propanol for much less, unless you are doing fancy analytical or GMP work, I doubt that it will matter much. Hexanes (mixture of C6H14 isomers) is what we use for most silica gel columns, no real difference from n-hexane in almost any case I have seen. So the purity does not need to always be perfect, the ket for most chemicals is not containing solids after evaporation. If you ethyl acetate contains acetic acid, or your hexanes contains some decanes or used motor oil, that will be bad. But many academic labs even distill their own from the waste to save money, works fine for most research work and large scale, low value work.

I often use lower cost chemicals for starting materials if I know that I will be purifying them anyway, as long as I know how to purify them easily. There are always cases where you have to have the best solvents, like organometallics work, strong bases, analytical trace analysis, semiconductor use, human use material, etc, but otherwise, there is often little functional difference between 99% and 99.9% in many simple chemicals, but often the price is 10-100 times as much. As long as it works for your task, go with it, and expiration dates are mostly useless.

happyfooddance - 7-2-2018 at 17:25

A lot of others have posted very on-point advice... I also recycle my solvents; I end up with bottles labled something like: hexanes: B.P. 41-44, pentanes, B.P. 90, etc... I almost alway label boiling points of recycled solvents, because it reminds me of how pure they are or aren't, in most cases.

NEMO-Chemistry - 7-2-2018 at 17:35

sorry my hexanes explanation was a bit off, and thx to those that clarified it.

ninhydric1 - 7-2-2018 at 17:39

I feel like these are overkill for a home lab. Unless you have a GC/MS (some people do), these are way too overpriced. For me, 2-propanol can be bought from pharmacies, methanol can be purified from HEET, GAA and HCl can be made and distilled at home. No point in buying overpriced, highly pure solvents.

Sulaiman - 7-2-2018 at 23:46

I would like all of my reactants and solvents to be 100.000000% pure and food-safe where applicable,
but at my level of inexpertise I am usually unable to determine the purity of my products to a fine degree
and I don't usually consume my products,
so the only impurities that I really care about are those that may cause toxic or explosive byproducts.
SO
Unless you intend to use these chemicals for something very sensitive to impurities I consider those prices insanely high for amateur use, about 5x what I pay for via eBay or similar for reasonable purity chemicals. .

woelen - 7-2-2018 at 23:49

Quote: Originally posted by RogueRose  
I also came across this:
sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione dihydrate - 99%+ as a pool shock. I didn't find much about it doens't come up in a search on this site. Can it be used as a chlorine generator like TCCA of DCCA?

sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione dihydrate is the sodium salt of DCCA. It is NaC3N3O3Cl2. It is a perfect chemical for making Cl2. It dissolves in water quite well.