Storing chemicals on my balcony (storing in changing temps)

  • #1
H3inbloed
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Hello gentlemen,
i recently started doing chemistry experiments at home. After going a little into literature and freshing up my decade-old, poor chemistry memory.
i have all basic safety gear and also installed some own measurements. Theres spilling and fumingprotection (air gets sucked out of the room through a flextube)edit: not the whole room has airchange, its a diy-funnel with about 12inch diameter that i cant move around and over whatever is being heated or is reacting at the time. I also have protection glasses and gloves, i dont have a gasmask yet but will order one soon.

Im also using very small quantities.theres a large tub filled with 1,5 inches of sand, on which the apparatus and the glases stand, as a last safewall in case something spills over or breaks. Easier to deal with and to dispose than a wooden table. My thought was that sand is in general not very reactive.

from the more "interesting" stuff i have so far made hydrochloric acid, For the next experiment i want to take on diethylether for which i already have sulfuric acid. Before the experiment/reactions i make myself very aware of the substances, especially how to store them.
I have both borsilicat-glass glasses and small HTFE containers. Both with screwcap.

I also have some rectangle containers (look like lunchboxes) in which i put the glasses, each glas gets its own box, to catch any gases that might escape the bottle. Also i dont think gases should escape, these bottles are made for harsh lab chemicals though.

So i hope i managed to make clear that i treat these things with respect, even its only very small quantities. That being said,
i still feel nervous keeping the things under my roof. I dont have a ventilated chemical-cabinet and in general, the only well ventilated place is my balcony. That would be much more secure i think.

So what do you think about balcony? I would put them in a watertight suitcase. There are, the temp-changes , which can go, if we talk about whole year, from -5 or even -10c to maybe 28-30c degree max. Its not so easy to find out how every single chemical reacts to that. Or doesnt, hopefully. Maybe im just a bad googler. In the general storing-guidelines ofc, they suppose that youre storing indoors.

the 2 potential problems that strike me, so far, are, boiling point? diethylether for that example might not be good in summer. And freezing/ increase in volume? i think most stuff does not freeze at zero like water, but to be honest i never looked really into it. Even if it did, the bottles have enough empty space inside. So if they dont freeze and dont have low boiling point, does that automatically mean its ok?

So what dou you think? Maybe some problems with storing outside that i missed?
please excuse any bad translastion-mistakes from German to English
 
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  • #2
Neighbors?
 
  • #3
hello,
theres no other balcony near. were a 2-household house, but their balcony is the other side. theres nothing under, over or next to my balcony. They have a window app 3,5m over my balcony...is usually closed.
 
  • #5
yeah, diethylether is a special case i think...was obvious for me it wont go there..im not even sure if i wanna store this long term in general.
 
  • #6
  • #7
for sulfuric Acid it only says "store cool" and freezing/melting point is 11C. Now what do we make with that? I guess 28c is not so cool anymore. Allthough boiling point is over 100C. Thats what i said when i meant its often not so easy to extract the answer for my case. And what happens if it goes above and below 11c regularly?
 
  • #8
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