Is 99.5% acetone good enough?

noted and thank you!

 

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This is sooooooooooooooooooooooo wrong. Acetone is the common name for dimethyl ketone or 2-propanone. Dimethylformaldehyde and pyrroacetic acid are names that I have never encountered in 50+ years in chemistry.

 

The other .5% is probably water. See if there is an MSDS you could check.

 

How to make red label scotch (just in case you're ever in the pinch)...

 

Reminds of me of my grad student days. Way back then before the Feds tightened the regs, it was easy and cheap to get 95% alcohol for lab use (not denatured at all). Chief lab tech kept several mysteriously labeled bottles under the bench. They were liqueurs (creme de minth, creme de cacao, etc.) that may have, just may have ... no one ever said, been made from lab alcohol.

Cal

 

The ChemEs made gin (they packed a column with the items listed on a bottle of Bombay Gin). The rule was that if you (or your date) couldn't read the GC you shouldn't drink it.

 

Most people I knew in graduate school had their own personal bottle for the 95%. One group had a guy there that had worked for Fleishmanns and he made a gin that you wouldn't believe!!!

 

I still need a little advice on draining the container and not pouring coins down the sink. Pull them out one by one?
Also, what container do people use to swirl a single coin in acetone?

 

Shot glass
Baby food jar
Pickle jar

 

You too? Lol!

 

That's a bit more complex. The only way to stop eventual acetone penetration with a glove is to wear rubber gloves so thick that manual dexterity is lost. Although I've no problem with direct acetone skin contact, it's always brief since I'm only handling one coin at a time and even at that my skin bleaches immediately. You have a few more coins to deal with than that.

Acetone tolerance varies with people, and for crying out loud don't have an open sore with which it can come into contact. For a preview of what that feels like, stick a dull ice pick into your tongue. Trust me on this.

Assuming you tolerate latex, that's probably the best bet for gloves which will allow you to effectively use a fingernail to grab the coins. At that, your protection is still measured in less than five minutes, but in your position I would probably pick up a box of latex gloves and work with them. The only way to "pour" them out is into a thin mesh scoop colander of some sort, and that raises problems with contact damage.

 

Incorrect, methanol is more "non-polar" than acetone. This can clearly be expressed by looking at die pole moments for each:

acetone = 2.91D
methanol = 1.69D

It's quite obvious that methanol has more non-polar character than acetone and it is not classified in chemistry as only polar.

 

An SDS (MSDS's are dead since HazCom 2012 came into affect) is NOT a reliable source for composition information since only hazardous components are required to be listed. The best place to see what impurities are tested for is the COA (Certificate of Analysis).

 

If you love your planet, DO NOT discard solvents down the drain. They should NEVER be allowed to enter the water system. The best way to dispose of solvents is on a concrete or blacktop surface in full sun. They will rapidly evaporate and the sun's UV rays and mother nature's other processes will breakdown the molecules.

 

"Die pole movements?" He's 13, @BadThad. Take it easy on him.

 

Wow, @BadThad the dipole moments you list are correct, but I always thought that methanol is more polar than acetone. I am pretty sure I can dissolve table salt in methanol but not in acetone. Something else going on?

 

Dimethylformaldehyde (Dimethylformamide?) = (CH3)2NCOH
[made by reacting Methyl Formate and Dimethylamime HCO2CH3 + (CH3)2NH = (CH3)2NCOH + CH3OH

Pyrroacetic acid = CH3CO3H
[made by reacting Acetic acid and Hydrogen Peroxide H2O2 + CH3CO2H ⇌ CH3CO3H + H2O]

 

Close, but I know what DMF is, have used it, but the term used was dimethylformaldehyde...completely different. Pyrroacetic acid...hmmm...worked on peroxides for many years and we called it peracetic acic.

 

Disposal by evaporation is illegal in some jurisdictions. Most correct method is to take solvents to a waste disposal facility. Some communities have free disposal days for small quantities.

For small amounts of acetone though, evaporation outdoors away from flames and sparks is OK as is pouring down the drain with lots of water. Still may be technically illegal, but not really damaging to the environment. It's relatively harmless when diluted. It's a metabolite of fat metabolism and appears in your blood when you haven't eaten for a while or have diabetes. It's biodegradable by microbes in the environment including in septic tanks and waste treatment plants.

Cal

 

Coffee filter should work just fine.