Swim has heard/seen lab grade ,reagent grade, acs grade , and 'pure'....

What are the differences seen between these purity categories???

Sure as quality goes down , so does price . But swim was wondering if this bee could skate by with just using the lowest grade of chemical available. Swim knows that better quality chems mean higher yields , but swim is only doing this for education purposes  

Reagent ACS

Meets ACS specifications defines chemicals that confom to requirements established by the comitee of analytical reagents of the American Chemical Society. Maximum limits of impurities are printed on the labels. In many cases actual analysis of the product is given

LAB-GRADE

Suitable for general laboratory work. Generally meet or exceed the specifications listed in the latest edition of the United STates Pharmacopeia/National Formulary(USP/NF). Often recommended for most educationnal purposes

PURIFIED

Chemicals of good quality whewre there are no official standards but which are sufficiently high purity to be suitable for many uses.

Technical

Commercial grade chemicals which are clean and of reasonnable chemical purity. Theses are generally intended for industrial use but also find use in some laboratory applications

Of Course there is also HPLC grade, but that dont need explaining.

Hope that helps!

Purity goes down like that:
HPLC-->ACS-->Lab grade-->Purified-->Technical

O.K., but where is reagent grade??

I think lab grade is equal to reagent grade...

so would i

Cool !!! Thanx bees!! S/D has often wondered WTF, "reagent", grade was exactly, but didn't really want to ask.

Purity goes down like that:
HPLC-->ACS-->Lab grade-->Purified-->Technical


Not necessarily.  ACS grade only applies to chemicals which the ACS sets guidelines for.  Purified could fall anywhere in that spectrum above technical.

They should all bee satisfactory for 99% of Bee's purposes.  Just make sure to dry lower grade solvents and most hygroscopic solvents if they need to bee dry.

Now, could some kind individual please tell S/D what U.S.P. ,means?

US Pharmacopea, products given this grade are suitable for use in pharmaceutical applications, and they usually have an FCC grade too, FCC is the Food Chemicals Codex, which means they are pure enough to be consumed or used cosmetically by humans.

Chemicals of USP grade are often more pure than lab/reagent grade I believe, because there are specific limits of contaminations like heavy metals, etc. that may have higher allowable limits in lab grade chems.

-blaaky