Chromatography Forum

Anyone have suggestions on the proper way to dispose of an unopened bottle of isopropyl ether?
Its got a 2015 expiration date.

Throw it out the window? That's what my old PhD supervisor used to do back in her uni days.

Hopefully there's not a lot of peroxide in there, especially if the bottle has been sealed from air. As long as there's no visible crystals sitting at the bottom you should be okay... But if you're cautious, you could do the potassium iodide test to see if there's any peroxide present. If there is, gentle washing with sodium metabisulfite solution will reduce them away. Otherwise, just dispose of it in flammable waste.

https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/AU/en/tech ... -formation

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ie50654a005

The fastest peroxide formation results from an insertion of oxygen at an alpha hydrogen. Isopropyl ether doesn't have an available alpha hydrogen so peroxide formation should be much slower.
Peroxide test strips are a good investment if you handle ether wastes of any kind.

The fastest peroxide formation results from an insertion of oxygen at an alpha hydrogen. Isopropyl ether doesn't have an available alpha hydrogen so peroxide formation should be much slower.
Peroxide test strips are a good investment if you handle ether wastes of any kind.

It does have an alpha hydrogen, the alpha carbon is tertiary. I thought it should be slower too because of the steric bulk at that carbon, but apparently it's faster than diethyl ether because the tertiary carbocation that results from loss of that hydrogen is more stable than what you get when you lose the same alpha hydrogen from diethyl ether. May also get some resonance stabilisation from the ether oxygen.

I second the suggestion of peroxide test strips, I've never used them but would be much more convenient than mucking around with making up test solutions.

Plenty of literature is available concerning ether and peroxide formation.

In addition to the information in prior posts, the resultant peroxide from diisopropyl ether is less soluble, resulting in earlier precipitation of the dangerous peroxide as a shock/friction sensitive solid.

Most ethers (e.g. diethyl ether, diisopropyl ether, and THF) come with a recommended expiration date on the container. (I personally would use or dispose (in the proper organic solvent waste) of unstable ethereal solvents by the manufacturer's expiration date.)

Peroxide test strips are available for testing of peroxide build up. These are not cheap, usually must be stored refrigerated, have a short shelf life, and are non-trivial to use correctly.

This is one case where I would just treat the solvents as highly perishable reagents.