Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Technical/Hardware store grades

kemikallyimbalanced - 2-5-2007 at 18:45

A chem company is selling some stuff I need in technical grade but I can get most from my local hardware store. I think the hardware chems are just technical grade anyway eh? What would be purer?

Blind Angel - 2-5-2007 at 20:21

Tech grade from chem company are certified and purer, while from hardware store they aren't certified and might contain others, voluntary or not, impurity. If you have the chance to use tech grade from a chem supplier, trust me you better go with it, depending on what you want, I personnaly prefer to pay a bit more and have less purification and more product at the end, than use cheap regeant and have low yield with lot of shit in it.

dedalus - 3-5-2007 at 08:45

In some cases, it all comes out of the same tank car.

I used to use hardware store acetone for doing total chrome tests (it's the solvent for the color reagent) and it worked just fine.

gambler - 4-5-2007 at 10:20

In my somewhat limited real of knowledge, I believe that it depends a good deal on purpose and what you intend to use the chemicals for.

Sometimes hardware store chemicals are fine and others not. Perhaps, you could tell us what the chemical is and what purpose and from that we can hope to ascertain if they are suitable.

If not then good luck.

kemikallyimbalanced - 5-5-2007 at 03:19

Thanks for the excellent responses to my question. The chems that I nedd are manily solvents and they will be used in many procedures so its hard to state a single one.

These are some:

acetone

dcm/chloroform

naphtha

denatured alcohol

ether

methanol


If someone can recommend some hardware store (or from whatever store) brands etc that would be assume.

evil_lurker - 5-5-2007 at 08:36

Ace Hardware has the acetone, toluene, naptha.

Co-op or other ag supply places have the methanol which is used to keep the water in tractor tires from freezing in the winter.

DCM can be had at online fiberglass and pyro suppliers, and in aircraft stripper at most stores (unlike the former will have to be distilled before use).

Denatured alcohol can also be had at Ace, but its roughly a 50-50 blend of ethyl and methyl alcohol.

Chloroform or ether, might as well hang those two up unless you make your own. Ether and chloroform are controlled and heavily watched. It is possible to make your own in both cases, but its a pain in the ass.

franklyn - 7-5-2007 at 22:49

Ether blended with ethanol or heptane is available in spray cans as "cold start"
carburation fluid from automotive products suppliers. One such is _
http://hpd.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=brands&a...
Another is _
http://warrenoil.com/pdfs1/AUTOGUARD%20PREMium%20Starting%20...

There's an old thread on this here _
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?fid=10&...

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