Should I write my will now? Going to use 1.5 moles of t-buLi tomorrow.

[gravenewworld]

And the solvent for the reaction is going to be 2.5 liters of ether.


I hear the t-buLi becomes an instant flame thrower if it is shot out of a syringe.

Seriously though, anyone else use this stuff before?

 

[chemisttree]

I've used it on a smaller scale. It's a doozie! Don't work alone during the addition or manipulation phase of the reaction. Have your fire extinguisher handy as well.
Are you going to transfer by cannula from the stock bottle to your dropping funnel or reaction vessel? There is a way to minimize the needle's exposure to the air. Let me know if you don't know of a method.

 

[gravenewworld]

I've used it on a smaller scale. It's a doozie! Don't work alone during the addition or manipulation phase of the reaction. Have your fire extinguisher handy as well.
Are you going to transfer by cannula from the stock bottle to your dropping funnel or reaction vessel? There is a way to minimize the needle's exposure to the air. Let me know if you don't know of a method.

Yeah we used a cannula to transfer 800 mL of 1.7 M t-butylli solution to an addition funnel. Everything was going fine until I started to try to drip in the t-butyli. Apparently the stopcock wasn't tightened extremely well and flames started coming out of it. We got lucky because a spark just missed our acetone/dry ice bath by like an inch (and there were probably 3 L of acetone in the bath). The fire stopped quickly though and it pretty much sealed itself.

 

[chemisttree]

You were using a teflon stopcock? That's pretty risky. I would use a ground glass stopcock with greased joints for any really air sensitive stuff. I've also noticed that aggressive bases react with teflon a bit turning them slightly brown. That can't be good. If you did have a fire, teflon melts! Big effects follow...