ahill
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OTC ammonia in OZ
..anyone know where I can get pure OTC ammonia (hydroxide) in Australia ?
(I'm in Melbourne)
I've had a bit of a look around, and all the stuff I can find has detergent in it.
I once had a crack at making my own by heating cloudy (detergenty) ammonia and bubbling the gas thru cold water with some success - but it was a very
stinky operation, and I recall the suck-back was a bitch.
Its not restricted or considered especially suspicious is it ? It and formaldehyde/formalin are two super useful seeming reagents that I just dont
seem to see around.
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j_sum1
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I don't know of any OTC sources.
You can buy it for $40 plus shipping (which will be significant for a 2.5L bottle.)
You can make your own https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh4gGkk74iU
Or you can concentrate supermarket ammonia (as described in the video above)
None of this is amazingly convenient and it will depend a bit on what concentration and volume you require, what equipment you have, how much you want
to spend and how much time you want to invest getting it. If you find a better source, then I am interested. You could ask Andrew at
argenscientific.com.au. It is not listed on his website but I am sure that he would be able to supply it.
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Oscilllator
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I too live in aus and I've pretty much given up on finding aqueous detergent-free ammonia OTC. What I did is buy a big fat 20kg bag of ammonium
sulphate fertilizer or similar, and the absolute cheapest base you can get your hands on then mix the two and bubble the resultant ammonia gas through
water.
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Tdep
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This is exactly me too. Never found any conc or low conc but high purity ammonia here in Aus. Making your own really is so much worse than it looks on
paper, I remember suckback fucking everything up with my simple setup that I did.
I do however, have 4L of Formalin that was left over from my grandmas vet clinic she used to run. I dont do much organic chemso its not finding a use
with me. What plans did you have for it??
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annaandherdad
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Don't try to bubble ammonia gas through water, use an inverted funnel to prevent suckback. It works very well. The reaction of ammonia gas with
water is exothermic, so cool the reaction vessel. You can reach quite high concentrations, but don't go too high, since presumably you will store
this in a bottle and you don't want high pressures to develop if the ambient temperature goes up (like in summer).
Any other SF Bay chemists?
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NedsHead
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Tdep, I have 5 litres of 25% ammonium hydroxide if you need some, I would be willing to part with a litre of it
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ave369
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Funnel trap is one way to prevent suckback. Another is using a retort: its thick wide "nose" is submerged in water on half a centimeter, the low
pressure caused by ammonia only sucks in a centimeter or two of water until the water level in the receiving beaker lowers enough for bubbles of air
to be sucked in and equalize the pressure. That's how I usually make hydrochloric acid. I'm sure this will work with ammonia, too.
Smells like ammonia....
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kecskesajt
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Try pharmacies.They should have.At least here, we have.
I formalin source:Heating tablets have paraformaldehyde, heat it to depolymerisation and bubble into ice cold water.
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adk
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I stock 30% Ammonia (ammonium hydroxide solution) in 2.5 L bottles. I can repack it in to 500 mL or 1000 mL bottles. It requires dangerous goods
shipping - pretty nasty stuff.
sales@argentscientific.com (Sydney)
Cheers,
Andrew
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NedsHead
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ahill, try Paramount chemicals in Preston, they sell to the public and used to sell on Ebay. I couldn't find ammonia on their website but it's worth
calling and asking. http://paramountchemicals.com.au/
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annaandherdad
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ave369---I haven't tried a retort, but when making HCl I passed the gas through some sand in a drying tube, just to remove all the little droplets
containing H2SO4, NaHSO4, NaCl etc before the gas is absorbed in water. This would also work for ammonia, and would help give a purer product.
Any other SF Bay chemists?
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ahill
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I find myself wanting ammonia for lots of things, on this occasion, to make up some ammonium chloride - but often it would be useful just because it
is a base that unlike sodium hydroxide, evaporates away without residue.
j_sum1 - yeah from their website haines seem great - I did try to deal with them once (years ago) but from what I remember they werent interested - I
think maybe they only dealt with educational institutions or something.
I'll give Andrew at Argent a whirl.
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ahill
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NedsHead - nice site - thanks.
You've dealt with them before ?
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NedsHead
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I haven't dealt with them myself, I came across them while looking for sulphuric acid a while ago, I do know that they sell to the public. post me a
5ltr bottle of their nitric acid
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diddi
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urea decomposes to produce ammonia. saturated urea solution is used in the automotive industry as an anti pollutant in truck exhausts. most mechanics
that run diesels in their fleet will have it by the 210Litre drum.
Beginning construction of periodic table display
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NedsHead
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did you have any luck with Paramount Chemicals ahill? this popped up on my Ebay homepage today, http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Pure-Ammonia-Solution-25-5L-very-...
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100PercentChemistry
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According to Wikipedia 25 percent ammonia(hydroxide) can be found in the drug store. In the U.S I have yet to see it though.
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NeonPulse
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Wikipedia is wrong there surprisingly! No pharmacy in Aus will stock ammonia that strong if at all. The supermarkets only have a weak cleaning ammonia
full of soaps too.
Paramount chemicals is in Preston Melbourne about 20km from Melbourne CBD and they will stock to the public. Pick up only. They also had acids for
sale but I would rather make my own ammonia and nitric acid than go on record as a buyer. It's cheaper too and you can make them stronger than what
they have for sale there.
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