Genuinely trying to be helpful here rather than a dick, but to clear a few things up:
There's no real "strong", here. You have effectiveness (at dissolving the particular compounds you're trying to remove) and toxicity/flammability/other-badness to consider, and they're not necessarily related.
I know you probably know that but for the benefit of anyone who doesn't it's an important distinction. I've had enough people tell me I'll poison myself using methylated spirits as a cleaner/antiseptic to last a lifetime :P
Nail-polish will typically have fragrances added though a hypoallergenic variety might be ok. Personally I'd be getting a little tin of Diggers since last I checked they don't adulterate it.
*EDIT* I've really gotta admire the kind of person who reads the below and thinks "This is something I want to make".
Originally posted by burr
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I know you probably know that but for the benefit of anyone who doesn't it's an important distinction. I've had enough people tell me I'll poison myself using methylated spirits as a cleaner/antiseptic to last a lifetime :P
As far as I know you can get them as nail polish remover (purity?). Be careful with any solvent, as virtually all of them are extremely flammable. Much more so than ethanol!
If you want to avoid toluene you're going to have a hard time.
If you want to avoid toluene you're going to have a hard time.
*EDIT* I've really gotta admire the kind of person who reads the below and thinks "This is something I want to make".
As it appears that Becky, I and others have not quite gotten the point
across, let me drive it home one more time.
While you can usually tell a conversation among chemists has gotten lame when they start swapping lab accident stories, it is important that you **understand** that the risk of using this solution is nowhere near the reward.What Becky is writing about is 100% true. I saw it. It happened. It could just as easily happen to you. Read this and then ask whether a clean frit is worth this.I was the first one to get to scene of the above incident. We heard a sound like an M-80 (about a quarter stick of dynamite) from two labs away. We got there within about 5 seconds to find her on the floor halfway across the room surrounded by a large pool of blood.
The filter flask that she was using turned to dust; we never found a fragment larger than about 2 mm even though it had been wrapped in heavy black electrical tape. The metal 3 prong clamp that held the flask sheared off at the point where it was clamped to the latticework in the hood. A row of glass cabinets along one wall were peppered with holes from the shrapnel.
The lab had one of those 100 mm diameter glass drainpipes running vertically on the wall opposite the hood(about 8-10 m away) -- the pipe cracked in the middle ...we believe that it wasn't from shrapnel, but from the compression wave of the blast.The student was wearing rubber gloves, a thick sweater, a lab coat, an apron and safety glasses at the time of the explosion. The hood was down part way and saved her from catching most of it in the face. The arm holding the frit caught most of the damage -- the glove was completely flayed and her arm had several hundred small bits of glass in it as well as several fairly large lacerations.
She had a wound about 20 mm in diameter just next to her jugular vein. At least one piece of glass went through her cheek. She (and everything else) was also covered with hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid; something that we didn't realize until much later because we had no way of knowing what had happened. I think the bleeding stopped more because she went into shock than from the pressure were were applying in two different places. She spent the next six hours having tiny bits of glass picked out of her arm, neck and face. I'm told that you continue to have those work their way out of your skin for the next several weeks after such an incident -- that you sweep your good hand across the arm and cut yourself on the glass sticking out of your own skin.
This student had some nerve/tendon damage and lost a bit of the motion in one or two of her fingers; I can't recall if she had any hearing loss or not. All things considered, she got off pretty lucky. And yes, she did leave the program a short time after.
across, let me drive it home one more time.
While you can usually tell a conversation among chemists has gotten lame when they start swapping lab accident stories, it is important that you **understand** that the risk of using this solution is nowhere near the reward.What Becky is writing about is 100% true. I saw it. It happened. It could just as easily happen to you. Read this and then ask whether a clean frit is worth this.I was the first one to get to scene of the above incident. We heard a sound like an M-80 (about a quarter stick of dynamite) from two labs away. We got there within about 5 seconds to find her on the floor halfway across the room surrounded by a large pool of blood.
The filter flask that she was using turned to dust; we never found a fragment larger than about 2 mm even though it had been wrapped in heavy black electrical tape. The metal 3 prong clamp that held the flask sheared off at the point where it was clamped to the latticework in the hood. A row of glass cabinets along one wall were peppered with holes from the shrapnel.
The lab had one of those 100 mm diameter glass drainpipes running vertically on the wall opposite the hood(about 8-10 m away) -- the pipe cracked in the middle ...we believe that it wasn't from shrapnel, but from the compression wave of the blast.The student was wearing rubber gloves, a thick sweater, a lab coat, an apron and safety glasses at the time of the explosion. The hood was down part way and saved her from catching most of it in the face. The arm holding the frit caught most of the damage -- the glove was completely flayed and her arm had several hundred small bits of glass in it as well as several fairly large lacerations.
She had a wound about 20 mm in diameter just next to her jugular vein. At least one piece of glass went through her cheek. She (and everything else) was also covered with hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid; something that we didn't realize until much later because we had no way of knowing what had happened. I think the bleeding stopped more because she went into shock than from the pressure were were applying in two different places. She spent the next six hours having tiny bits of glass picked out of her arm, neck and face. I'm told that you continue to have those work their way out of your skin for the next several weeks after such an incident -- that you sweep your good hand across the arm and cut yourself on the glass sticking out of your own skin.
This student had some nerve/tendon damage and lost a bit of the motion in one or two of her fingers; I can't recall if she had any hearing loss or not. All things considered, she got off pretty lucky. And yes, she did leave the program a short time after.



In fact that comment began the onslaught - now suddenly people are agreeing they withdraw the wand before the steam finishes. Go figure.
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