Chemical Storage

[TheDagLab]

Hello everyone. Thought a subject on chemical storage might be good. My bromine bottle has developed a "burn bubble" on the top so I’m in need of a new storage container for it. I tried a glass stoppered bottle but it leaked out a little around the stopper.
Any ideas or thoughts?

Eric

[Andy Stockton]

According to a number of sources I have read PTFE = Polytetrafluoroethylene including Teflon® is resistant to bromine. Here is a link to a chemical resistance chart: http://www.jenseninert.com/chemical-resistance.htm. The company that makes that chart available, Jensen Inert Products also sells PTFE bottles and dropper bottles. Glass is resistant to bromine too, but needs a glass or PTFE stopper. Glass can also break. Pure bromine in glass is fairly risky if you are storing it indoors. PTFE will not break with normal handling.Here is the link to the PTFE containers: catalog.jenseninert.comYou might also be interested in the Great Lakes bromine safety and handling guide. It is pretty industrial, but has a lot of info. guide.pdf Caveat: I do not have personal experience storing or handling bromine.

[TheDagLab]

Great information Andy. Working on ordering one right now.

[drdag]

My bromine water is in what looks like an ordinary bottle with a plastic type lid. The pure bromine is is glass phials that you have to break to remoeve the contents

[TheDagLab]

Got my PTFE 100ml bottle today for the bromine!
If you need one contact ebay seller chei0321, he has connections with PTFEMART.com.

[Andy Stockton]

Hey Eric. I was looking back through some old posts and noticed this one. You have had the PTFE bottle for a year and I was wondering how it held up? Did it turn out to be a workable container?

[TheDagLab]

The container itself is turning a little red. Must be soaking up some of the bromine. I also put Teflon tape on the threads to make sure the seal is tight.

It’s a good container but I’m not convinced that Teflon is the best choice because of the color change/saturation.

Is anyone else using a Teflon bottle?

[Andy Stockton]

Thanks for the feedback. If you decide it is failing please let us/me know if you have a chance. I’m trying to build up these snippets of safety information to eventually add to the Wiki.

My bromine is still sitting in its’ original glass bottle with a phenolic cap sealed with some kind of blue heat shrink tape around the threads. I haven’t opened it as I have no purpose for bromine yet. I suspect it has a teflon cap liner but do not know. The locked storage area is outside the house. So far no blistering or other signs of failure.

One of the things I am investigating is a clear plastic dip for glass bottles to shield them from breakage. It would help remove one of the objections of using glass which still seems to be the only substance used to make bottles that is 100% bromine proof. It wouldn’t help you if it did shatter, but I wonder if a thick enough coat would prevent breakage when dropped from normal heights?

[CasedImage]

That’s a good idea Andy, you could use expandable foam in a makeshift mould to coat from the neck of the bottle down. I am purchasing some bromine here in NZ and I can’t get it in small amounts – the glass 1cc ampoules, so am having to purchase 250ml of bromine (not bromine water but the more concentrated form). Handling that amount of bromine is a worry, I may decant it into smaller amounts.

www.CasedImage.com

[dagist]

With bromine, you must be very conscious of what kind of plastic it gets near. Last year I traded some mercury for bromine with a fellow daguerreotypist and the bromine was given to me in a dark-brown glass bottle that once contained darkroom print toner (I think it was Edwal, if I remember correctly). The bottle had a common hard-plastic screw-on top. Everything seemed fine, until about a month later when I smelled bromine in my darkroom and realized that the bromine fumes had dissolved the hard-plastic top into a pile of goo.

The lesson learned was that bromine should ONLY be stored in and around a material that it won’t/can’t dissolve. Andy Stockton’s link at the top of this thread describes polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) as the only plastic rated “excellent” for chemical resistance to bromine. Polyvinylchloride (PVC) gets a rating of “good” and everything else is either “fair” or not recommended. My bromine is now stored in the original Baker Scientific dark-brown glass bottle I originally purchased it in 11 years ago. The screw-on cap has an inner liner that I presume may be PTFE.

Be careful…….very careful with bromine. If you accidentally dropped a bottle, you would have only seconds to clear the room before the painfully acrid fumes would begin to burn your lungs with every breath.

With the utmost of bromine respect,

Rob McElroy

Buffalo, NY

[Andy Stockton]

This is a link to the most complete chart I have ever found showing the chemical resistance of various forms of plastic. Note that there are several kinds of flourinated plasics besides PTFE, but it can be difficult to know what you are getting without very specific information from a manufacturer.

http://k-mac-plastics.net/chemical-large.htm

I hadn’t thought about using the foam. You could embed the bottle in another container and that would protect it, but it also might make it rather awkward to pour. The protective plastic I was thinking of was similar to a product they sell for dipping tool handles in. Here is the link for the company that has the clear version:

http://www.caswellplating.com/aids/plastidip.html

I have also looked at this, it might be tougher:

http://webtronics.stores.yahoo.net/hiteepenandp.html

and finally I also saw this bottle for storing pesticides:

http://www.freundcontainer.com/product.asp?splid=SPLID02&pn=3319B01&cn=44&bhcd2=1244780419

Alan’s suggestion of storage in small quantities is excellent, as are Rob’s general cautions. It is really better to store it in a locked cabinet outdoors if at all possible. If you must bring it into your home, decant the amount you need and no more, it is very nasty stuff. If you do spill some clear out, opening doors and windows as you go. It will dissapate with sufficient air exchange. It can be handled safely, but needs a great deal of respect to avoid permanent lung damage.

[hirudin8k]

You can also get brown glass bottles that are coated in chemical resistant polymer. It won’t be enough the store the bromine if the bottle breaks, but it’d give you a good 24 hours to get a replacement:

http://www.calpaclab.com/catalog/Plastic_Coated_Amber_Glass_Bottles-580-1.html

-J

[Bingtan]

I use pyrex labware with a PTFE Stopper which I got from ebay – and it’s painfully expensive for something so small :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STOPPER-Safe-Lab-Extraction-Teflon-PTFE-45-50-NEW-Lab-Safety-/400215862631?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d2eb96d67#ht_1537wt_1210

I then immerse the whole bottle in silica beads, inside a jar…

I once had pure bromine in a brown bottle, using only a teflon-lined plastic cap – it was eaten in days. The link above is pure teflon.

[jgmotamedi]

I have been very pleased with the PFA bottles and vials which I have purchased from Savillex for Bromine.

[Andy Stockton]

Hi Jason – I'm curious how long have you had bromine in your PFA bottle? I tried a PTFE bottle and it stands up to the bromine just fine, but it clearly allows bromine vapor to migrate through the sidewalls. The whole bottle turned orange and the bromine corroded a hole through the lid of the outer containment I was using – all this with no failure of the PTFE. Is the PFA more resistant to migration of vapor?

[jgmotamedi]

Andy,

I have had about 10ml of bromine in a 30ml PFA vial from Savillex for about 3 years, and see nearly no sign of leakage. There is a tiny bit of red stain on the Teflon tape I use around the lid, but I think this is from bromine on the outside of the threads or perhaps migrating down the treads. I use PFA vials (for bromine) and jars (for iodine) from Savillex, rather than bottles. I think the vials and jars are thicker than the bottles, and who needs 250ml of bromine?

[Andy Stockton]

Thanks for the response Jason. I will give PFA a try. I wonder how it would do for mercury storage? Every storage method I have tried so far still allows higher than allowable levels of mercury vapor to build up in the secondary storage container. It's why I continue to store all of my chemicals in a ventilated outdoor storage cabinet.

[jgmotamedi]

I suppose PFA would be fine for mercury, but I haven't really thought about it. I just use a glass bottle (the kind with the plastic "shatter proof" coating on the outside) with a PTFE-lined cap, and some parafilm around the lid inside a cooler. Anyhow, like you I keep all of my chemicals outside of my house. I can't see any reason to bring them inside, even if they were perfectly sealed.

[Author]

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