Acquiring bromine/uses of

[KidCurry]

Somebody, slightly like me, would need some bromine (just a few grams). Is this still possible to acquire in Europe (more specifically scandinavia) without problems or questions asked? I'm not aware of any illicit/clandestine uses of it, but it's till a pretty hazardous compound. So, what's your experience with it? Thanks!

[NERV]

I don't know about the availability of pure bromine, but I did do some experiments with extracting it from NaBr. It involved slowly adding H2SO4 from an addition funnel to a mix of NaBr and MnO2 in a RB flask. This gives of Br2 gas, which could be condensed to the liquid form in a condenser. NaBr can be acquired at pool supply stores, H2SO4 from drain cleaner, and MnO2 from old alkaline batteries.

P.S. its advised that you dont start a topic on your first post.

[ALENGOSVIG1]

Gas some saturated NaBr solution in a RB flask (cooled in an icebath) with a condensor hooked up. Then seperate the Br that settles at the botom.

[nbk2000]

He means gas a NaBr solution with chlorine gas. This will displace the less reactive bromine from the sodium, forming salt and free bromine.

I know Br is soluble in CCl4, but what about more available chlorocarbons like chloroform or perchloroethylene?

[Mr Cool]

Bromine is soluble in all non-polars as far as I know. But be aware that once it is dissolved you may not be able to seperate it again, not without fractional distillation anyway. This is fine if you can use the solution as-is, for bromoacetone etc., but means that it is not a viable method to extract bromine from stuff (e.g, getting it out of aqueous solution) if you require it to be pure.
I bet you could use NaBr, NaOCl and HCl to isolate it (spa brominating agent, bleach and brick cleaner, all nicely OTC).

NaOCl + 2 HCl + 2 NaBr--> Br2 + H2O + 3 NaCl

That's how I get iodine from NaI.

I have heard that dibromodimethylhydantoin can be used as a good brominating agent, if that is what you need. That's another common pool chemical. I'm not sure what types of compounds it works for, though. It might be specific.

[jfk]

Originally posted by nbk2000
He means gas a NaBr solution with chlorine gas. This will displace the less reactive bromine from the sodium, forming salt and free bromine.

I know Br is soluble in CCl4, but what about more available chlorocarbons like chloroform or perchloroethylene?
yes, thanks nbk - this is the way ive done it before. if you use hte exact values from the chemical equation you canmake the right ammount of bromine that you want, however this is quite hard to do. a search on google would be quite rewarding i think.

[blindreeper]

Instead of posting a new topic, what is the NaBr sold as in pool shops? Any brand names? More importantly has any one seen it in Australian stores? I would be very interested indeed.

[chochu3]

Look for Brom-Start, it contains 99% NaBr. The best way I would think to make this would be to use HCl to protonate the Br and then use peroxide to oxidize the HBr formed. Maybe you can suck the bromine up from the water by using ether.

[Real_Wrestler]

I had noticed that KidCurry said, that you didn't know of any "illicit/clandestine uses of it", well i searched google with the keywords "tear gas" + "bromine" and came up with many things on the subject of bromine compounds being used to cause lacrimation(tearing of the eyes).

Infoplease website (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0848033.html)

Has anybody tried making tear gas with a bromine compoud??

[nbk2000]

Brombenzyl cyanide comes to mind.

And the good thing about this one is that it's highly persistant, lasting for months once absorbed into structural materials or soil. :)