Please help me out, Im trying to develop a working method to help with the availability of easy TLC kits around the world, so that people can test their own substances/extracts.

But since shipping flammable solvents and acids is theoretically forbidden (with some exceptions of private companies that ship it very expensive), ideally all the 'dry' materials for the kits would be send, and people would have to buy the solvents needed locally.

I want to develop a method that works for most people around the world, and for this I need to know the available solvents.

Most specially im interested if you can get:

Solvents: Butanol, Ethanol, methanol, IPA, acetone. (if so, what %)
Bases: Non-sudsy Ammonia / Ammonium hydroxide (if so, what %)
Acids: Acetic acid (or distilled white vinegar with nothing added), sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid (if so, what %).

Tell me if you can, or if you know for sure that you CANT get any of those.

Please tell me (if you dont mind sharing the info) what country you are in and more or less where in the country (or pm me).

Thank you.

Here in the USA, i can get dichloromethane (paint stripper/plastic cement), calcium hydroxide (pickling lime), sodium carbonate(soda ash/cleaning soda), petroleum ether (lighter fluid, stove fuel), heptane (rubber cement/stove fuel), and arguably ethyl ether (quick start fluid, which will likely have industrial contaminants of some kind) in addition to whats listed. There are others too, but those cover a lot of bases, no pun intended. Considering how restrictive the US is, i would imagine that all of those are pretty easily acquired everywhere in the world.

Thanks for answering!

Can you get ethanol/IPA/methanol?

Minor contaminants is in general not a problem since this is for thin layer chromatography to know whats inside a drug / plant, not for consumption.

No problem - yep, i can get all of those - 91% ipa (rubbing alcohol), 99% methanol(fuel additive/racing fuel/winshield washer fluid), 95% ethanol (everclear). Id imagine if you saturated the water in salt, you could get to 99% on both ethanol and ipa as well.

There's a list some where I'll try and dig it up.

I'm pretty sure you can't get higher than around 97% ethanol without being vacuum sealed. IPA is available at just about any pharmacy at 70-99%.

5% distilled white vinegar is available at any grocery store.

This is a very good project! I actually thought of doing something like this but my lack of knowledge in TLC is keeping me from starting.


BTW I have these things available from stores around my general area:

-solvents
acetone (98%)
Naphtha (clean solvent from residue test)
Toluene (98%)
Xylene (98%)
Methylene di Chloride (98%)
nitroethane 98%
methanol (?%)

-acids
acetic, glacial acetic acid
muriatic
vitamin c

-bases
drain cleaner lye
baking soda

Awaiting for future plans on this project. keep me in the loop.

Thank you.

I live in the USA, Virginia.


Solvents:
Ethanol: everclear 75-95%, illegal in VA, but a drive to WV is possible
methanol: possibly 99% in HEET link
Isopropyl: 70 & 91% widely available. possible 99% in isoHEET, link
acetone: Kleen-Strip brand, (99%)
butanol: not sure what use or where to find
other solvents available: toluene, xylene, MEK, heptane, naphtha


Bases:
Ammonium hydroxide: 2-3% I believe, the non-sudsy at walmart
Sodium hydroxide
calcium carb/ bicarb
calcium hydroxide


Acids:
Acetic acid: 5% (distilled white vinegar),
sulphuric acid: ???
hydrochloric acid: Kleep-Strip muriatic, 25%

Endless,


I live right next to Tijuana.


In TJ you can get whatever you want.., including solvents.


I majored in Chemical Engineering. I did not finish the major but I did take a lot of chemistry and I feel at home in the lab.

I'm in Scotland and have found the following solvents, acids and bases to be available:

Solvents:
Butanol - Available for use as a biofuel.
Methanol - 99.95% virgin grade.
IPA - Readily available at various levels of purity up to 99.9%.
Acetone (99.5%) - This is available but there are now apparently new regulations in the UK which require the completion of a "Declaration of Use" form. This may be unique to the suppliers I'm looking at, but I figure it's worth mentioning.

Bases:
Ammonia - Readily available.
Ammoinum Hydroxide - Available @ 35% (I've only checked one supplier so far, so this is subject to change.)

Acids:
Acetic acid - Readily available - Also found sources offering 20% and 80%.
Sulphuric acid - Available @ 96%.
Hydrochloric acid - Available @ 10%, 28% and 36%.

in alaska:

butanol - not that i have seen, though i haven't looked. it is a distinct possibility (lots of DIY-ers up here, so anything with pragmatic applications can generally be found)

methanol - readily available as HEET, probably other sources as well

IPA - 99% readily available at most stores

acetone - 99% readily available at hardware-type stores.

i haven't seen any ammonium hydroxide, but again i haven't looked. ammonia is there, but you do have to search a bit for it.

acetic acid - 5% vinegar extremely common, have seen higher %s but they are few and far between
haven't looked for sulphuric.
hydrochloric acid dilute is fairly easy to find at varying percentages (none above 30% i have seen, but i haven't looked hard).

I just wanted to know if HEET and iso-HEET were clean, viable sources?


i linked their MSDS in my post above.

thanks! red