Dear fellows,
As we know that water is used in the green synthesis of metal oxide nanoparticles which is non-toxic and potentially safe. Please enlist other solvents except water which are green and non-hazardous.
Dear Javed Iqbal , ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are considered as green solvents.
Dear Javed Iqbal,
Please see the attached document. It will ultimately guide you.
Thanks
Regards
Engin
The only safe 'green' solvent is water. I beg to differ with all the above posters that have listed (expensive and toxic) organic solvents. If you feel I am wrong, then drink 100 mL of each or any of the listed materials.
Fully agree with Dr. Alan F Rawle. We living in the water world...
Nearly, as Alan. However, in medicine there are (green) products for external (skin, etc.) use, only.
I usually use the mixture of alcohol and water. It is really useful to synthesis and disperse metal oxide nanoparticles.
Christian Harito Maybe one should disperse in beer or wine?! Or better still, vodka.... (yes, a joke; attempted humor)
25 mL of pure ethanol injected into a vein is fatal....
Wetting with (FDA approved) surfactants such as Tween and Span is biologically acceptable as well as electrostatic stabilizers such as phosphate and steric stabilizers such as PEG. All can be used in aqueous media without much toxicity issue.
Dear Javed, The fact that you ask this question suggests that your synthesis in an aqueous environment does not work or does not lead to the desired product. I agree with others before me that the only true green and safe solvent is water. I went one step further, just out of curiosity, to look into not so obvious solvents.
Supercritical CO2 is a possibility. There are a few example where researchers used water-in-supercritical CO2 emulsions for metal nanoparticle synthesis. After having made the particles one can evaporate the CO2 so it can re-used. Here's an example of a synthesis in water-in-supercritical CO2 micro emulsions: Article Synthesis of Silver and Copper Nanoparticles in a Water-in-S...
Final option I see is to still use water, but supercritical water.... https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/3/7/3794/pdf
Now, if the above are truly green....? Not in their supercritical state I guess...But the moment one restores these systems to ambient pressure and temperature, they are.
I hope these suggestions are helpful. Kind regards, Leo
In chemical practice isopropyl alcohol widely used. It evaporates well and is available in the market. It is little bit less toxicant, than ethanol, but anyway, I not recommend drink and sniff it...
I believe that IPA is actually more toxic than ethanol - and methanol is even more toxic than the pair. I know of no drinks that incorporate IPA (isopropyl alcohol), but IPA (India Pale Ale) is a well-known form of ale!
In many countries, though, IPA is considerably cheaper due to customs and excise duties.
Time-weighted average :
Methanol OSHA PEL TWA 200 ppm (0.15 mm Hg)
Ethanol OSHA PEL TWA 1000 ppm (0.76 mm Hg)
Isopropanol OSHA PEL TWA 400 ppm (0.30 mm Hg)
Same time, partial pressure at 20 C is 96, 43.9 and 32.4 mm Hg respectively.
It is mean, that eqilibrum concentration under solvent puddle is much dangerous in case of methanol, but isopropanol and ethanol are less dangerous. Anyway, equilibrum concentrations are more than permissible even at room temperature. Anyway, as my first boss said: Work with any reagent such way as if it were deadly.
Ventilation required!
By the way, I first started working with isopropyl alcohol in the USA. In Russia, we worked with ethanol (not vodka, especially not whiskey).
Hi Vadim You remind me of a story when we sold a laser diffraction instrument into a Russian cement manufacturer. Although the cement industry was standardized on IPA for wet measurement (now we'd only consider dry analysis), our customer insisted that the measurements would be taken in 100% ethanol. The rationale? 'We get 20 liters of ethanol per day allowance; 1 liter for the analysis and 19 liters we drink..." (BTW, usually mixing with some other fruit juice). Just wouldn't work with isopropanol......
In academical institute, we always had problems with the workers too (electricians, technician staff, etc.). They often asked my shief about need to fix something in the laboratory. At the same time, with an experienced eye, they scanned all the desks and shelves ... I usually got up between the bottle of alcohol and the worker so as not to tempt a weak person ...
You can try with deep eutectic solvents (DES) or ionic liquids.
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