Iodine in petroleum ether, need help.

[happymolecule]

Hello, i have 1L of petroleum ether and noticed on the label "<2ppm Iodine". I searched across many websites, but i still can't find solid information about iodine and if this quantity is any dangerous when doing extraction. Maybe somebody have more knowledge in chemistry and general and can tell me what I should do?

 

[Bagseed]

ppm means "part per million". I can't give you 100% assurance that this is a neglible amount, but I think that it should be safe.

what exactly do you want to extract? maybe get a solvent from a pharmacy just to be sure..?

 

[happymolecule]

i want to extract lsa. There's some info about iodine quantities and its toxicity but i still can't make complete sense out of it." Human data: It has been reported that work was difficult but possible at 0.15 to 0.2 ppm and that work was impossible at 0.3 ppm [Flury and Zernik 1931]. Exposures to 1 ppm have been reported to be highly irritating [Casarett 1975]. Eye irritation was experienced at 1.63 ppm after 2 minutes [ACGIH 1980]" (http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/7553562.HTML),
then
"The Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health (IDLH) value is 2 ppm (11) based on data indicating severe eye irritation at 1.63 ppm after 2 minutes" (http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/cci/safety/iodine_hazards.pdf).
But I also know that people use iodine to purify water from microbes at even higher quantities, so basically i cant interpret some of the information correctly and i'm trying to find out what should i do, should i return this solvent and look for iodine free petroleum ether or is it ok to use this one.

 

[sekio]

The petroleum ether you have is iodine free... it says less than 2ppm of iodine which is a typical lower detection limit for some tests. I bet it also gives an assay for things like metals, lead, ash etc but that does not imply that it contains these at significant levels, just that they are tested for as part of the quality assurance process.

The limit values you quoted are for iodine vapor in air and are not relevant.

You can very easily detect the presence of iodine in pet ether because iodine has a very distinct brown-purple tint visible even in high dilutions. Even a tiny bit of iodine dissolved in pet ether will make it quite visibly yellow.

 

[swilow]

^This website is lucky to have members like you Sekio

 

[happymolecule]

thank you very much, sekio you made me feel a lot better now. Well the label doesn't say about any other chemicals in this pet ether except <0.02% water but that's ok and it doesn't seem to be any bit yellow, it just looks transparent like water.