Problems aquiring bromine in the UK

[Kinetic]

In the quest for producing a controlled substance analogue in the UK (the procedure is very similar to the one in

https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/ppa.html

, SWIK has found himself in need of some bromine. His usual supplier of all things chemical says they cannot send him any, as it is too hazardous to ship. However, they have previously sent Red-Al, and will send LAH. They are not a suspicious lot (methylamine no problem ), and I'm wondering if anyone else has had problems aquiring bromine in the UK/EU, or if there are any shipping restrictions. It's being sent to a residential address but they don't know (at least I didn't tell them), and the Red-Al was sent no problem. Has anyone in the UK managed to buy bromine? I'd like to know if it's possible, so I can try somewhere else.

This may be invalid; my final question is whether iodine can be successfully substituted for bromine in the above link, as this is much easier to come across over here.

Thanking you kindly in advance...

[alphacentauri]

Molecular bromine is very irritant (you could make tear gas with it), for this reason I think is not sold as it is, but the sodium or potassium salts should be freely available. What about oxidizing the salt, then collecting the vapour in a cold finger?
Bromide salt in a test tube, then some sulphuric acid, then a bit of dichromate orange solid, heat it up. In a few seconds bromine will evaporate as a brown heavy vapour.

[HoneySuckle]

I recall something about Bromine being a mutagen (bad stuff to get on your skin).  I also recall a synth for 2C-B by Beaker in which the bromine source is bromic acid.
-HoneySuckle

[Kinetic]

I have just noticed SWIK's supplier (along with many others) sells the much less harmful iodine monobromide. It's cheaper than bromine too! Could this substitute for bromine in the above synthesis? I'm using the argument that bromine is more electronegative than iodine, so the bromide ion will add to the alpha carbon of propiophenone in the same way it would from Br₂. Will this be possible? The only other problem I can think of is that iodine monobromide is a solid at room temperature, so it could not be added neat via a dropping funnel. Id still like to hear of anyone's experiences with ordering dangerous (not necessarily watched) chemicals in the UK/EU; this can help other bees plan ahead too. There's nothing like spending £300 on chemicals to find you can't get one vital ingredient!

Edit: Sorry, iodine monobromide is actually quite a bit more expensive than elemental bromine, especially considering the difference in molar masses of the two...

[Elementary]

You may just have to make your own bromine from bromide salts !

Though I can undersatnd your frustration as you seem to be able to aquire most other things  
I've got nothing to do today but smile !

[yellium]

If you want to go for brominate a certain phenethylamine, the iodinated and chlorinated versions are just as interesting. Has your supplier also problems shipping a small lecture bottle of Cl2?

Otherwise, you could try ordering some N-bromo-succinimide.

[Kinetic]

MaDMAx; yes, I have seen bromine in all its many layers of packaging before (from Sigma-Aldrich; if I'd known how hard it was to ship, I think it may have walked from my University with me...). The MSDS is a particularly nice one, a search on

http://www.chemexper.com/

brings it up.

Yellium; no, I'm not trying to make 2C-B (although it's a nice thought ), I need bromine as it's much easier to work with (though more dangerous) than gaseous chlorine, for the link given in my first post (brominating an aliphatic carbon rather than an aromatic one). I am considering Iodine monochloride as it is a liquid, and will give up the chloride ion as the nucleophile to attack the alpha carbon. It's quite expensive though...

Elementary; if I can't get elemental bromine that is exactly my (last resort) plan. I think it's actually cheaper that way anyway, though I don't really fancy doing it. NaBr is cheaper per mole of bromine than bromine itself!

I may try ordering it from overseas; I found a company (the largest bromine manufacturers in the world) that sells bromine in 8000L quantities (that's 24,000 tons)!

[Diggity]

I found bromine hcl. at wallys in the pool section. I think it was like 1.00 per 100g's

I bought 5 packets, not sure why though.
& I'm, somethin of a phenom, 1 puff of da cron, I'm un-stopable.   
 

[Nemo_Tenetur]

Could you please further specify what bromine HCl is ?
I have no idea what do you mean.

[Kinetic]

While searching for another bromine supplier, I came across

http://www.bromaid.org

. I can't believe there is a website dedicated to the dangers of bromine alone! It must be even more dangerous than I thought; I think I'll have to try overseas for my aquisition because nobody will knowingly ship this stuff to a residential address.

I too was wondering what Bromine HCl was; do you not mean bromine monochloride? I heard somewhere that this can be used as a replacement to chlorine in swimming pools, but I doubt the general public would have access to it.

[Diggity]

OOOPs, Sorry guys,

It's Sodium Bromide 99% from HtH Spa "Brom-Start" (56g) packages.. for some reason I thought it read bromINE hcl,

& I'm, somethin of a phenom, 1 puff of da cron, I'm un-stopable.   
 

[Kinetic]

For anyone who is interested (hello?), recently a rather pleasing package arrived from a different UK chemical supplier, containing some lovely bromine .The strange thing is, this supplier uses the same delivery company as the previous company, who refused to sell me bromine due to hazardous shipping.
It may also be worth noting that there were no warning stickers on the side of the box (eg 'oxidising'). I wonder if the delivery man knows what he is handling!
So, for anyone else who wants to buy bromine in the UK, it seems there are no specific restrictions on shipping, you just need to find a company who'll sell it to you! As with most products as it happens...

[Osmium]

> for anyone else who wants to buy bromine in the UK, it
> seems there are no specific restrictions on shipping,

Hell no! There are very specific restrictions on shipping, your supplier was too lazy (and greedy) to follow them!
I'm not fat just horizontally disproportionate.

[Precursor2112]

I like his suppliers..if everybody went by the book, we'd never get anything done (staring lovingly at his bottle of HgCl)

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than
those who falsely believe they are free."