[woelen]

Finally I have found a place for a good bromine sample   . Next week, I hope to receive two sealed colorless glass ampoules, each filled with 800 (!!!) grams of bromine. One of these will be used for my element collection, the other one, I intend to use for fun experiments. So, I'll break that ampoule and take out the bromine (the seller told me to freeze the bromine, then break the top of the ampoule, and then let it liquefy again and pour it in a bottle). The freezing is for the case, that something goes wrong (more glass breaks than wanted) and not lots of Br2 are poured around   .

The problem is that I do not have a good bottle for bromine. I was given a link to a supplier for reagent bottles, but they asked $19.50 for a single 100 ml bromine-resistant bottle. Two of these bottles cost me more than the bromine in it, so that is not good at all. Is there someone over here, who has experience with long-term storage of bromine.

Unfortunately, I cannot store it in my freezer. I only have one, and I do not want bromine in my freezer, where I also have food. I think my wife also would object strongly to that idea  .

[Dude]

You should be able to use a standard glass bottle (with UV protection or cover it with aluminum foil).  The tricky part is coming up with the cap (it must be Teflon-lined).  The cost shouldn't exceed $1 individually.  Albemarle is the leader in bromine production in the USA, so it might be worth calling their tech service department.  At the plant that I used to work at, both chlorine and bromine were transferred and stored in run-of-the-mill stainless steel (must be rigorously dry- water allows formation of HBr which is corrosive).  PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) was mentioned as the best material to line the reactors.  

What exactly is a bromine-resistant bottle (Teflon)?    

[jdurg]

You should be able to use a standard glass bottle (with UV protection or cover it with aluminum foil).  The tricky part is coming up with the cap (it must be Teflon-lined).  The cost shouldn't exceed $1 individually.  Albemarle is the leader in bromine production in the USA, so it might be worth calling their tech service department.  At the plant that I used to work at, both chlorine and bromine were transferred and stored in run-of-the-mill stainless steel (must be rigorously dry- water allows formation of HBr which is corrosive).  PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) was mentioned as the best material to line the reactors.  

What exactly is a bromine-resistant bottle (Teflon)?    

Well I'd personally avoid covering it with aluminum foil since if the bottle had a failure in it, having aluminum foil anywhere near the bromine is a VERY bad idea.  (I'm pretty certain that woelen is aware of that.   )  In reality, there is no such thing as a resistant bottle.  ALL bottles will eventually fail or slowly leach out bromine.  It is a horrifically nasty element in terms of containment.  Your best bet for the storage of the bromine is to get an amber glass bottle which has a Teflon lined cap to it that you can screw down tightly.  You'll then want to wrap the threads of the bottle with Teflon tape and screw the cap on.  Take this bottle and place it in a plastic baggie.  Then take the bottle in the bag and place it in a steel shipping can, or a coffee can, filled with vermiculite.  You can then keep your bromine safely in there with the understanding that the metal can it's stored in will slowly corrode over time.

[woelen]

The two bottles of bromine arrived yesterday. They are really cool samples of bromine. Also somewhat scary, to have such massive amounts of bromine around. I must not think of one of these bottles breaking. These samples of bromine are very old. They are from an old GDR (former Eastern Germany) lab, dated May 2th, 1971. I included some pictures of the huge bottle of bromine (its total weight, including the glass bottle is almost 900 grams!).

http://woelen.scheikunde.net/science/chem/pics/bromine.html

I have two of these large bottles of bromine, each bottle at a price of just appr. $35 (EUR 30). I think that is a bargain.

Btw, the packaging of these bottles of bromine, used for shipping them, is a story on its own.

Each bottle was packaged in a big 2 liter cylinder, filled with some absorbing material (kind of soft pebbles), with many metal globules in them (probably these globules are meant to react carefully with the bromine, in case the ampoule breaks). The cylinders were closely packed with this stuff and the bottles softly immersed in that. On top of the cylinders there was a sturdy cap.
Each of the cylinders in turn was put in its own big plastic jerry can, together with over 1 kg of pure sodium thiosulfate and 100 grams of pure sodium metabisulfite in a separate small plastic bag. Apparently these chemicals form a second protection (they reduce bromine to bromide, themselves being oxidized to tetrathionate and sulfate, both not dangerous chems). These two chems are packaged in separate plastic bags, presumably not permeable for liquid bromine but only for bromine vapor, allowing slow non-violent absorption of the bromine. This big plastic jerry can with the cylinder, 1 kg bag of Na2S2O3 and 100 gram bag of Na2S2O5 in turn is put in a big thick plastic bag. Two of these plastic bags were put in a box, together with wrapped paper and plastic to fill up the total volume. For these two 250 ml ampoules, I received a 7+ kilo parcel of dimension 60x50x40 cm. I was really surprised to receive such a huge parcel. But I liked the package, now I also have over 2 kg of Na2S2O3 and 200 grams of Na2S2O5 for free.

[constant thinker]

Jeese. Seams like you got more than you paid for woelen. Well the costs of the shipping materials was probably included but you seam to have gotten a lot of other things you weren't expecting.

[jdurg]

Holy good lord that's a lot of Bromine!  Nice acquisition there Woelen.  I'm jealous!