improvised chem equipment/junkyard style

[Misanthropologist]

Wasn't sure where this would go. Found a few threads on improvised glassware, but those were on glass, not plastics, and had nothing to do with contaminants/unwanted reactions.

Say you had no access to your lab- due to surveillence, mishap, whatever. I know pyrex bakeware works decently fine, but the glass tubing can be hard to come by in a pinch. If one were to use, say, pvc piping and a commercial adhesive, along with a clean rubber auto hose for coils, what sort of syntheses are best avoided due to hazardous byproduct or possible contamination to the point of uselessness? Anybody know enough about plastics?

[c.Tech]

Plastics wouldn’t be very useful, as chemistry uses a lot of strong acids (sulfuric, nitric) that would eat through plastics and in some cases rubber (nitric). Without acids many reactions are useless.

You can always make your own glassware by glass blowing, but this might not get the desired product.

[Cindor]

But is not as easy as blow and make a bottle (or a ballon, or somthing).
It takes your whole life to learn the art of glass blowing.

[Misanthropologist]

What other materials could be unreactive enough? My point is items that could be found in a hurry, not many people have access to that type of furnace.

[Skean Dhu]

On Mcmaster-Carr and Grainger I beleive they have a chemical resistance table for the plastic components they carry, or if they don't a search using that phrase or something similar should yield what you are looking for.

As I posted in another thread it may be possible to use anodized aluminum in the distiallation of nitric acid. I have never tried this method nor do I know of anyone who has, but in theory it should work .

[lucas]

A lot of plastics are good for use with acids for a while. Polyethene and polypropylene can be used with concentrated nitric and sulphuric acid especially at low temperatures like for nitric esterification. They will not last forever but they resist quite well for a while. If your using disposable recycled containers then PP is ideal.

Kartell has a guide to plastic uses in the back of their catalogue. The online verion of the plastics guide is here.
http://www.kartell.it/uk/labware/pdf/Man_labware.pdf

This list rates PP and PE at 50 deg C as "virtually resistant" to 95% sulphuric.
Should last 30 days of exposure.

Ive found kartell's plasticware to be very good and when using measuring cylinders for example the exposure time is minimal so they dont wear out. I hate breaking glassware so I like plastic for it's forgiving properties.

[nbk2000]

Nalgene.com has a plastics compatibilty chart as well.

[Misanthropologist]

Just what I was looking for, thanks everybody. I could'nt find any of these with the commercial engines and was getting pretty frustrated.