Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Undergraduate General Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: tbone037 on January 17, 2008, 10:56:06 AM
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So, this is somewhat of a concept / I'm curious and might (read: probably) never get around to doing, but anyway.
I make my own beer/wine and am very interested in the concept of recycle/reduce/reuse. So most of the materials I can get or retrofit to work for a new purpose I will. It goes without saying that containers are a crucial part of making your own beer/wine and I have had to bite the bullet and get a few 5 gallon glass carboys for my fermentation vessels. However, I'm always in the market for more/varied containers.
So the lab here at work goes through alot of 1 gallon+ size chemical bottles and they just stack up outside waiting to be recycled. There's 2 types.
Type one: Opaque sturdy white plastic ones that hold anything labeled from "water, reagent" to mildly dangerous chemicals.
Type two: Brown glass, thick, heavy, with superduty lids. The chemicals I've seen on the labels are Potassium Permanganate (spelling?), Ethyl Alcohol, and Petroleum Ether. Bad stuff. Like 3 or 4 in several categories on the MSDS sheets. But only 1 in the Health category if i recall correctly.
Here's my two main questions. Could you ever clean these things enough to be safe? Could you test them to make sure they are clean?
Thoughts and concerns are appreciated. I need these guys to be clean not just for the obvious safety reasons but they will have young beer or wine in them for extended periods of time and will pick up off flavors/odors if they can.
For those of you who know these containers do you think they will stand up to the pressure of carbonation? For example a normal wine bottle will shatter (known as bottle bombs) or at least eject a cork if you try to bottle sparkling wine or beer in it. However, a champagne bottle / beer bottle with a bottle cap will hold up to the pressure. These bottles seem pretty strong/sturdy.
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Briefly, no, you shouldn't use them for a home purpose.
Longer explanation:
You can't really be sure you've cleaned them out enough, and you can't really be sure the one's that say they only contained water really never accidentally contained something else.
Your boss/supervisor/safety officer/VP in charge is not going to let you have something with their name on the delivery label in your house, it'll look like you're dumping their waste for them. If someone says it's A-OK with them -- they're making a mistake, one that will come and bite them or you in the arse sooner or later. They have contracts with the recycler -- expensive ones -- to prevent problems, you'll be interfering.
Reuse of laboratory equipment is just simply not done. Recycling is often done, but it has to be destroyed in the process, so it doesn't rear up it's ugly head when you'd want it least.
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Even with the most intense high temperature steam cleaning processes...NO DO NOT RISK IT...and true...your boss would be violating waste disposal protocols...you could be slapped with an OSHA fine/violation.
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Well as far as chemical safety goes, using a container that once held lab purity ethyl alcohol for beer or wine making wouldn't be bad, but it's not worth risking. There definitely are the official problems with recycling and legal issues... I wouldn't suggest it at all. Just be glad that the lab's equipment is going to be recycled and reused anyway :P
As an alternative... Could you use milk jugs or soda bottles for the fermentation vessel? The quantity would definitely be smaller, but it should be fine.
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You can just use 5 gallon painters buckets you buy from the local hardware store with tight fitting lids. You really can, trust me, I have. Just clean and sterilize them really well (obviously they have to be new, and not previously been used for anything).
You actually do not want a completely sealed container; which you implied. You want to maintain the pressure, but to much pressure is bad; you actually want a pressure relief system that will maintain the pressure.
And I would not even put it in a HPLC grade old Ethanol container. They denature the Ethanol with methanol. If you have any of that left in there, your beer will suck (there will not be enough to hurt you, just make you vomit and feel horrible). Plus, you will produce some methanol in the fermentation most likely, you want to optimize the conditions to reduce it and not possibly add anymore!