What are some good, hydrophobic solvents I can LEGALLY buy?

[Ulysses1994XF04]

I've been wanting to build a small, home biochemistry lab for a while but the biggest thing holding me back from pouring the time and money into it is that I just can't find any place that will sell the reagents I want to use to individuals (most companies that make laboratory-grade reagents will only sell to certified labs at universities and companies and such).

I really want to do extractions of cellular products (enzymes, pigments, etc) of plants (grass clippings, dead flowers from my garden, etc) and fungi and bacteria I can just grow inside. For some of these, I need a good hydrophobic extraction solvent that's 1) as pure as possible and 2) has a low boiling point so I can easily evaporate/boil off (ideally, I would like to recapture it by distillation so I don't have to constantly buy more of it).

I can't find a single manufacturer that will sell chloroform, dichloromethane or small hydrocarbons like pentane and cyclopentane to individuals. What other hydrophobic solvents can I use?

[Ian Jessup]

Not the cleanest choice, but kerosene is an option.

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[Simon Quellen Field]

It's easy to get butane.

It is liquid in your freezer, and boils nicely at room temperature.

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[Simon Quellen Field]

A 2 liter soda bottle can hold over 100 psi.

At 74 psi, butane is a liquid up to 50 degrees Celsius.

So you could liquefy the butane in a lighter refill, transfer the liquid to a 2 liter bottle with your sample material, and close it up. The pressure won't get above 74 psi, and some of the butane will still be liquid even at room temperature. Put it back in the freezer, and it goes back to liquid at 0 psi, and you can open the bottle.

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[Simon Quellen Field]

For more fun tricks with butane, see this page.

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[Josiah Zayner]

Unless you need to run HPLC or TLC, which you most likely don't; I don't see the need for hydrophobic solvents. Furthermore, most people use Methanol, 2-Propanol or Acetonitrile all of which can be found on ebay.

I have never heard of anyone boiling things off when doing a protein extraction.

Tissue homogenization can be done easily. Freeze tissue, add SDS or some detergent and grind, repeat.
Then one centrifuges and takes the soluble fraction the proteins can be separated using ammonium-chloride fractionation or something like ion-exchange chromatography that only requires salt and a syringe and a column.   

[Ulysses1994XF04]

I actually really want to do chromatography at home. HPLC is definitely out of my league but I would really like to do Thin Layer and Column Chromatography.

Finding manufacturers that sell TLC plates and chromatography-grade silica to individuals is a whole other issue :I

[Ulysses1994XF04]

Great info, thanks!

I guess it might be possible to do extractions of some plant/fungal/microbial cell products using chilled butane and recapturing it by distillation by encasing the condenser and receiving flask with ice and cold packs. If I lose a little, butane's cheap. 

[Ulysses1994XF04]

Plants generate a lot of oils (turpenes, isoprenoids, long-chain alcohols, etc). A lot of these are isolated by extraction with hydrophobic solvents with partition of non-oily components into an aqueous phase.

[Matt Lawes]

As Josiah suggested, methanol may work - it's often used isocratic with water in reverse phase HPLC ..... polar stuff comes off first, amphiphiles in the middle and hydrophobes last. Methanol boils at 68 Celsius. Perhaps ethanol will work instead of methanol is too hard to get ..... Everclear is 190 proof / 95 % ethanol and will boil about 78 C. Alcohols are commonly used to extract colors and flavors from plant material.

If by hydro phobic solvents you mean polar aprotic solvents - look at nail polish removers ... perhaps you can find bulks at salon supply stores?. Nail polish removers are typically one or more of ethyl acetate, acetone or acetonitrile. Any of Therese would extract your terpenes (saw more recent post).

>matt

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-----Original message-----

From: Ulysses1994XF04 <ben...@comcast.net>
To: "diy...@googlegroups.com" <diy...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sat, Jan 5, 2013 18:46:06 EST
Subject: [DIYbio] Re: What are some good, hydrophobic solvents I can LEGALLY buy?

Great info, thanks!

I guess it might be possible to do extractions of some plant/fungal/microbial cell products using chilled butane and recapturing it by distillation by encasing the condenser and receiving flask with ice and cold packs. If I lose a little, butane's cheap. 

On Saturday, January 5, 2013 5:16:41 PM UTC-5, Ulysses1994XF04 wrote:

I've been wanting to build a small, home biochemistry lab for a while but the biggest thing holding me back from pouring the time and money into it is that I just can't find any place that will sell the reagents I want to use to individuals (most companies that make laboratory-grade reagents will only sell to certified labs at universities and companies and such).

I really want to do extractions of cellular products (enzymes, pigments, etc) of plants (grass clippings, dead flowers from my garden, etc) and fungi and bacteria I can just grow inside. For some of these, I need a good hydrophobic extraction solvent that's 1) as pure as possible and 2) has a low boiling point so I can easily evaporate/boil off (ideally, I would like to recapture it by distillation so I don't have to constantly buy more of it).

I can't find a single manufacturer that will sell chloroform, dichloromethane or small hydrocarbons like pentane and cyclopentane to individuals. What other hydrophobic solvents can I use?

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[Simon Quellen Field]

You can seal the whole works, and you won't lose any.

Two 2 liter bottles, connected by some PVC pipe, with one bottle in the ice bath, and the other with the butane and plant solutes. Dry ice and alcohol would work really well for the cold side. You can freeze the butane that way.

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[Simon Quellen Field]

Some locales (such as California) limit the alcohol percentage to 50.5%, so even the brand "Everclear" is actually only 151 proof in California. That said, denatured alcohol is available at any hardware store, or online. Alcohol for stoves is pretty much the same thing.

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[Matt Lawes]

You poor bast**** in California!

Anyhew .... yep 'denatured' alcohol is just the good stuff (ethanol) spiked with a few % methanol .... so that would work well.

>matt

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[Nathan McCorkle]

Maybe Simon or someone could weigh in on if this is easily DIYable,
but supercritical CO2 is a great Non-Polar (NP) solvent.

Depending on how edible/toxic you want the stuff to be (i.e. you're
adding it to some cells down the line vs just doing spectroscopy), I
know of quite a few easily obtainable solvents found at camping or
home repair (hardware) or automotive stores.

Gasoline, diesel, kerosene, ethanol, methanol, limonene (sold as 100%
citrus extract air freshener), Methy Ethyl Ketone, Acetone, Naptha,
Toluene, Xylene, Mineral Spirits, White Gas (camping), Brake Parts
Cleaner (acetone, toluene, methanol, CO2)

On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 2:16 PM, Ulysses1994XF04 <ben...@comcast.net> wrote:

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[Simon Quellen Field]

The advantage of butane over acetone or ethyl acetate is that you can get rid of the solvent without heating the solutes. Some of the things he wants to extract are fragile and 56 Celsius (acetone's boiling point) may cause them to oxidize or decompose. Ethyl acetate boils even higher at 77 Celsius.

Methylene chloride (dichloromethane) boils in a warm room (40 Celsius), and you can buy it for $540 per metric ton, or by the kilogram. It is what they use in the Drinking Bird toys, and hand-boilers.

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On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Matt Lawes <ma...@insysx.com> wrote:

[Matt Lawes]

Yep .. butane could well be the ticket. Not sure I'd want to mess with dichloromethane.

>matt

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-----Original message-----

[Simon Quellen Field]

Carbon dioxide becomes a supercritical fluid above 27 Celsius and above 1080 psi.

You can get tanks good for that pressure for less than $80.

But there is a much simpler way. If you have a machine shop, you can go more upscale.

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[Ulysses1994XF04]

Like I said, HPLC is way beyond my capacity; a single HPLC device would bankrupt me, not to mention the cost of columns, mobile phase reagents, etc :I

And by hydrophobic I mean "will NOT mix with water;" stuff that will form a layer with water. Imagine vegetable oil floating ontop of vinegar.

But believe it or not I found some suppliers on Ebay that sell Dichloromethane; some say they only sell to registered business and university labs, some don't.

[Simon Quellen Field]

I linked to some dichloromethane suppliers that sell to hobbyists.

But butane is less toxic, won't dissolve your vinyl floor or countertop, is cheaper, and easily available.

Also, because room temperature is 25 degrees above its boiling point, it is easier to get all of the solvent out of the product without heating it.

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[Ulysses1994XF04]

 Nathan McCorkle : "Maybe Simon or someone could weigh in on if this is easily DIYable, but supercritical CO2 is a great Non-Polar (NP) solvent."

Perhaps, but at room temp, CO2 is liquid only under extremely high pressure (a few dozen atmospheres). You'd probably need an heavy-duty air tight pressurized chamber, but then how would you manually manipulate the stuff inside it?

NMcC "Depending on how edible/toxic you want the stuff to be (i.e. you're adding it to some cells down the line vs just doing spectroscopy), I know of quite a few easily obtainable solvents found at camping or home repair (hardware) or automotive stores."

I want to isolate cellular secretions and harvest intracellular components (which would kill them)

NMcC "Gasoline, diesel, kerosene, ethanol, methanol, limonene (sold as 100% citrus extract air freshener), Methy Ethyl Ketone, Acetone, Naptha, Toluene, Xylene, Mineral Spirits, White Gas (camping), Brake Parts Cleaner (acetone, toluene, methanol, CO2)"

Gasoline, diesel, kerosene, naptha, white gas and mineral spirits aren't pure enough; they're mixtures dozens/hundreds of hydrocarbons, some of which have extremely high boiling points. If you dissolve something in that, you're not getting it back out easily. Limonene also has an extremely high BP. Ethanol, methanol, limonene, methyl ethyl ketone and acetone are water-miscible; I need something that will form a layer with water, not mix with it.

And the aromatics you listed are in that category of reagents that I can't find a manufacturer that will sell to individuals.

Like I said, for purity and low BP, I think dichloromethane is my best bet, assuming those suppliers on Ebay sell to individuals.

[Simon Quellen Field]

Take a look at the video I linked to.

It shows how to extract limonene from orange peels using dry ice in a capped plastic bottle.

I've worked quite a bit with dichloromethane. It is not a friendly solvent. You'll want a fume hood or you'll want to perform the extraction outdoors. You don't want to breathe the vapors. Butane, however, is friendlier. It is non-toxic, and you breathe it right back out if you do inhale it. Smokers inhale it when they light up. Of course they also inhale much more toxic things that way, so that isn't much of an endorsement.

Dichloromethane leaves marks on anything is dissolves, and it dissolves a surprisingly large number of things in the typical house or basement lab. It can permanently fog your safety glasses, for example, depending on what they are made of.

And here is an interesting application of supercritical butane extraction that looks similar to what you want to do.

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 6:07 PM, Ulysses1994XF04 <ben...@comcast.net> wrote:

> Gasoline, diesel, kerosene, naptha, white gas and mineral spirits aren't
> pure enough; they're mixtures dozens/hundreds of hydrocarbons, some of which
> have extremely high boiling points.

You can always do a first-round distillation of these to make sure you
don't have lower BP crud before using in your protocols.

> If you dissolve something in that,
> you're not getting it back out easily. Limonene also has an extremely high
> BP. Ethanol, methanol, limonene, methyl ethyl ketone and acetone are
> water-miscible; I need something that will form a layer with water, not mix
> with it.
>

limonene isn't very water soluble " d-Limonene is only somewhat
soluble in water (13.8 mg/L) " and though it can get
annoying/overpowering, I've gotta think its safer than other worse
smelling solvents (but that intuition could be totally wrong)

> And the aromatics you listed are in that category of reagents that I can't
> find a manufacturer that will sell to individuals.

If you're in the U.S. it depends what state you're in, but around here
I can get any of those at Lowes or Home Depot or Wal-Mart.

--
-Nathan

[Ulysses1994XF04]

That's interesting but like I said, how would you be able to manipulate the fluid inside of there to do extractions? Wouldn't the CO2 boil/explode the second I open it? Assuming that thing doesn't explode, the CO2 would just quickly boil away and the extracts I captured with it would fall back into the aqueous phase. Then I'm back where I started. I don't think it would be practical.

I'm swinging back and forth between DCM and butane.

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Ulysses1994XF04 <ben...@comcast.net> wrote:
> here to do extractions? Wouldn't the CO2 boil/explode the second I open it?
> Assuming that thing doesn't explode, the CO2 would just quickly boil a

you would work with it just like butane, with multiple vessels



--
-Nathan

[Nathan McCorkle]

As long as you don't want intact organelles, I think the high-pressure
methods would work

CO2 needs some more thinking, but it would certainly be the ideal
solvent for DIY applications if we could figure out where to get
"quick-connect" type connectors between those tanks Simon linked to,
or if the supercritical CO2 damages those tanks, finding other
tanks/vessels.

I mention container damage as that see-through supercritical CO2 tank
video Simon linked to had an associated video that showed the plastic
swelled significantly in the solvent chamber. I don't know how CO2
would affect those aluminum tanks.

Something like a soxhlet extractor might also be useful too, depending
on the project.

--
-Nathan

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 9:17 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Something like a soxhlet extractor might also be useful too, depending
> on the project.

Which in glass, a setup can be found for ~$75 including clips and clamps
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/Laboratory-Glassware-Kit/610062_211500263.html

--
-Nathan

[Dakota Hamill]

Soxhlet extractors are probably the coolest things ever created.  I have tons of videos of them in action but I have to dig them up

[Mega]

I don't know if this is feasible, but what about baby oil?


i saw a video clip on youtube how to store metallic lithium (from batteries), and they used baby-oil as a cheap source for carbohydrates.


But, of course, this doesn't reallay have standardized boiling poitnt, etc. Or is just one substance, perhaps it's a mixture of different carbohydrates.

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Jan 06, 2013 at 05:24:03AM -0800, Mega wrote:
> I don't know if this is feasible, but what about baby oil?
>
>
> i saw a video clip on youtube how to store metallic lithium (from
> batteries), and they used baby-oil as a cheap source for carbohydrates.

Hydrocarbons.

Use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_paraffin_(medicinal)
or kerosene or petrol ether.

>
> But, of course, this doesn't reallay have standardized boiling poitnt, etc.
> Or is just one substance, perhaps it's a mixture of different
> carbohydrates.

Hydrocarbons. All it does is prevents lithium from oxidation by
air and water. All alkali metals should be stored under mineral
oil.

[Andreas Sturm]

Yeah, sorry for that. Translated it word-by-word from German, where we say "carbon-hyddrogen-s"  for hydrocarbons. Somehow it got to carbohydrates :D

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[Simon Quellen Field]

Try both DCM and butane, and see which you like best.

Yes, the carbon dioxide boils when you release the pressure. That's the whole idea. It boils away, and you are left with your solute.

There will be no aqueous phase. Carbon dioxide boils at -57 Celsius. There will be ice, easily filtered out.

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On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Ulysses1994XF04 <ben...@comcast.net> wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/diybio/-/lJAz8P5mTdMJ.

[John Griessen]

On 01/05/2013 09:46 PM, Ulysses1994XF04 wrote:
> how would you be able to manipulate the fluid inside of there to do extractions?

Seems like you would design an experiment so tilting gets the mixing actions
you want, then put in fridge or freezer to cool, then open and decant your extraction.

perhaps some 3D printed shape in ABS would help with that step and be fairly
clean, and recyclable, letting you use a new clean one for different types
of chromatography runs.

Maybe 3D printing is too leaky, but machined plastic with a window
installed by o-rings could be a good extraction or reaction chamber.

Did you read about the chemists making one shot 3DPrinted reaction chambers?

They 3D print "made from a quick-drying silicone polymer usually used as
a bathroom sealant to build the vessel up layer by layer."

http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/cronin/research.php?t=3D%20Printing

If your idea won't work with silicones, maybe 3DP of polypropylene
could be done in a messy strings-of-plastic-stretching-around way
to get glass windows embedded and ports, and such. With polypropylene,
you can heat a metal fitting and press it into an undersize drilled hole
and it will make a strong connection if the metal has some
ridges to grab on.

If you like the re-usability of glass, I have some old pyrex for sale.

[Cathal Garvey]

I'd avoid Methanol unless Isopropanol won't do, just because too many methanol fumes will probably lead to headaches. Probably not blindness unless you drink it though. :) Isopropanol should have a very similar range and it's easier to get in my experience!

As Simon points out, "Stove" or "biofuel" ethanol is easy to find in fairly pure form; it's methylated, meaning it has ~1-2% methanol added, but compared to the bright purple, nauseating sort of denatured ethanol you get in the pharmacy over here, it's a big step up in usability and purity. Also, far cheaper in bulk.

For a nice organic solvent that should be easy to get, consider Limonene also! It's often available pure online as a cleaning solvent. Fairly innocuous, pleasant smell. Just wear gloves that won't melt in it, it's probably quite hash on the skin.

Finally, Acetone is great and cheap, but be very wary of flames or ignition sources, as it likes to creep along surfaces as a fine dense mist, so flash-ignition of containers of acetone by fairly distant ignition sources is..characteristic. Also, it doesn't smell very good, but it's pretty harmless. Just don't drink it, and perhaps wear gloves to prevent defatting of your skin.

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