Acetonitrile Shortage

[nellermann]

I use Acetonitrile a lot. With the worldwide shortage going on, I was wondering what other labs are doing. Are you stockpiling the acetonitrile or are you altering your method? And if you are altering your methods, what are you doing exactly?

[Kostas Petritis]

I personally was not aware of ACN shortage!...

[WK]

nellermann,
Has your supplier given you that info?
In my 20 year experience sometimes the price has rocketted in short term and then gone back to reasonable price later on.
There was a plant that burned down once which affected the cost for a while.
Its definitely worth the extra on methanol for HPLC.
WK

[nellermann]

I usually get my ACN from VWR. They just sent me a letter today that said and I quote:

'Due to a world-wide shortage of Acetonitrile, our leading suppliers have declared Force Majeure and ongoing supply is severely limited. Product is being allocated to VWR from our chemical suppliers, and as a result we will be allocating to our customers based upon a factor of their past usage. We intend to support our loyal customers with allocated quantities while product supply lasts; therefore, will regrettably be unable to fulfill orders from customers whom have not ordered Acetonitrile recently from us until the situation changes.'

I called up Fisher and they told me that they are also affected by the ACN shortage, but they are not allocating their supply.

I'm surprised that no one has heard of this.

[Bruce Hamilton]

Most acetonitrile is a by-product of acrylonitrile production, so there have been a lot of shortages over the last 25 years, as the differing markets respond to product demand.

There are now also several global suppliers out of China and India, so it's unlikely any shortage will be too severe. The current economic climate probably has affected some producers, and some HPLC grade suppliers may waiting to see how the markets settles, rather than purchase at higher price.

I would just look at some other suppliers as a Plan B option.

A market study earlier this year.
http://www.sriconsulting.com/CEH/Public ... /605.5000/

Please keep having fun,

Bruce Hamilton

[Consumer Products Guy]

My supplier rep said today there is definitely ACN shortage, maybe stemming from shutdown from China Olympics. He said accounts with contracts should be OK, his company is rationing however so people don't hoard.

[lcguy1]

Oops, I started a new post without checking first, sorry for the double post.

Lcguy1

[DR]

No problem - I deleted it, contents follow:

So, is anyone else finding that there is a "worldwide shortage of acetonitrile"? Here is a message we got from our ACN supplier:

" Due to a world-wide shortage of Acetonitrile, our leading suppliers
have declared Force Majeure and ongoing supply is severely limited. Product is being allocated to VWR from our chemical suppliers, and as a result we will be allocating to our customers based upon a factor of their past usage. We intend to support our past consistent users of Acetonitrile with allocated quantities while product supply lasts;therefore, will regrettably be unable to fulfill orders from customers whom have not ordered Acetonitrile recently from us until the situation changes."

We use quite a bit of ACN for column wash solutions and we were wondering if anyone else does this. We are considering just starting to recycle the wash solution. Has anyone else done this and is there any problem, besides small amounts of contamination, with doing this? We could probably live with that in the short term, but if this persists long term, it could become a problem.

[tatep]

We have been aware of this shortage for about 2 weeks now. According to our Sigma rep the causes are two-fold. A plant in Texas that makes ACN as a byproduct of acrylonitrile production was damaged from Hurricane Ike and production was stopped but is now operating (not at 100%). The other is that Chinese facilities were not allowed to export chemicals during the Olympics and 'might' not resume exportation (due to environmental concerns with chemical facilities).

We have been told to expect shortages through the end of the year and possibly through 1Q09.

Depending on the chromatography you are doing there are plenty of options available (MeOH, EtOH, THF, or even NPLC, SFC), but you have to find out for yourself what is acceptable (regulated or non).

[Bruce Hamilton]

No problem - I deleted it, contents follow:
So, is anyone else finding that there is a "worldwide shortage of acetonitrile"?....

We use quite a bit of ACN for column wash solutions and we were wondering if anyone else does this. We are considering just starting to recycle the wash solution. Has anyone else done this and is there any problem, besides small amounts of contamination, with doing this? We could probably live with that in the short term, but if this persists long term, it could become a problem.

My suggestion would not be to recycle all your column wash, but to change your wash protocol, either to a more aggressive formula/ concentration or to methanol. Often, a small period of low pH buffer
solution will expedite contaminant removal from columns.

Alternatively, look at your wash regime, and perhaps reduce the time, or just run contaminated fractions to waste - but then you should question why have longer rinses.

The problem with recycling wash solvent is that you may be deliberately adding impurities back to the column, possibly from different samples/products. Murphy's law would soon come into play.

I doubt the shortage will persist for long - in the past the shortages here have lasted about 3 - 4 months. Because that's the typical shipping time for chemicals to here, we find out about them after they have ended.

Bruce Hamilton

[ARBE98]

Fisher notified us in mid-September of the shortage, so we've been economizing on ACN usage since then. We've been told the reasons for the shortage are Chinese export restrictions because of the Olympics, a downturn in the plastics industry of which ACN is a byproduct, and capacity issues at the major ACN supplier.

We've chosen to not change our methods to other solvents just yet. Although we aren't cGMP, we don't want to go through the headache of checking for resolution of peaks in chromatograms with 30 components present! We are mainly trying to conserve by informing the analysts to not start the instruments pumping too soon before samples reach the lab and to make sure what samples we run are really needed by production. (It's very frustrating when you realize you've been running an advance sample for months that the production folks really don't need anymore!!)

[Matt Savage]

Seems to be plenty (over 8000 winchesters) in stock at Fisher UK....

https://extranet.fisher.co.uk/insight2_ ... =A/0627/17

Matt

[krickos]

Hi

Well the ACN shortage seems first have started when it comes to production volumes like API manaufacturing but obviously sooner or later it would hit like LC grade ACN as well.

Production wise we have had issues since a some months ago, lab wise we try to cut down on the use.

Trouble in the pharma buissness is that you just can not change regulatory approved methods or production methods just like that so hopefully the situation seattles soon otherwise a very intresting situation can develop.

[JimH]

I've been aware of an impending shortage since around the Olympics, and Ike definitely didn't help matters. We've been ordering more than necessary since that time and keeping about as much on hand as code will allow. My chief supplier recently informed me that they will not be taking on any new customers or accepting larger-than-normal orders from existing ones. I'm very glad I bumped up my forecast months ago

[nellermann]

I actually attended a webinar about this shortage last week. Apparently, one of the major manufacturers has decreased supply by about 50% due to the economy. Plus, this company plans on shutting down for 2 weeks in January, so things might get really sticky around that time.

I plan on trying to keep a case on hand at a time. I will be double ordering from 2 different vendors since they are allocating ACN.