stuck stoppers

[grandyOse]

Please help me on this one. I have a glass reagent bottle with ground glass stopper that is 20% full of sodium hydroxide solution. The solution crept up and out, leaving crystals all around the stopper, and the stopper is glued in solid. I even had a thin film of silicone grease on the stopper. I really want to save the bottle, and it would also be nice to keep the hydroxide, as the LEO's and drug fiends have made it impossible to buy it OTC. I have applied a few drops of sulfuric acid around the joint, which did not help. I have read about people actually have some success with padded pliers, but that is my last resort. All help is appreciated.

[ALENGOSVIG1]

You could try heating the joint with a torch.

Be careful. :)

[IPN]

I had to open lots of stuck stoppers this week...
What you should is to pour hot water to the bottles neck for quite long then tap the neck gently with some sort of wooden club and try to twist the stopper open.

If that doesn't help, immediately pour cold water to the hot neck, just be careful not to break it. Then repeat the tapping, it should get open that way.

Good luck!

[metafractal]

You might also try heating the bottle itself over a bunsen burner flame for a while in an open space. This will cause the material inside the bottle to expand and hopefully the pressure will cause the stopper to fly off.

[knowledgehungry]

You can't buy sodium hydroxide:confused:. Where do you live, its the most common drain opener over here, its called lye.

[T_Pyro]

Sodium hydroxide is easily available as a laboratory reagent... Just ask some chem teachers, they'll tell you from where to get some in your city. Otherwise, you can easily prepare some at home by the electrolysis of conc. salt solution, with high current density at the anode.

[vulture]

The pressure blowing out the stopper is a BAD idea. The bottle will simply explode.

I've succesfully loosened a jammed valve of a separatory funnel. Heat it gently whilst moving it ABOVE the flame. Take it out every few minutes and tap the joint. Continue for half an hour. Remove the object from the flame and immediatly continue by genlty hammering the joint/valve with a wooden stick/whatever. With some perseverance the stopper should give up in the end.

You also could try pouring some HCl between the joint.