Looking for Refrigerant Grade R600a in USA

[ultralo1]

Have you checked here?
http://www.mesagas.com/Instrument%20...re%20Gases.htm

They are in Cali.

[mytekcontrols]

Have you checked here?
http://www.mesagas.com/Instrument%20...re%20Gases.htm

They are in Cali.

It appears that they have iso-Butane as part of their offerings so I sent them an email to ask for amounts and pricing. Hopefully they'll do a better job at responding then United Refrigeration (I sent those guys an email and two messages through their online contact form with no response).

[ultralo1]

Let me get to the shop tomorrow. I have national refrigerants number. They have a great refrigerant engineer there. He is very helpful and is very conversational with refrigerants. We had a great discussion about a month ago about the different properties of 508b and 23.

[mytekcontrols]

Got a reply from Mesa Specialty Gas, and here is what they have for iso-Butane (R600a)...

MesaGas_iso-Butane.png

Shipping depends on the cylinder size, but would be in the range of $10-$35 + $35.00 dg fee paid to the carrier.

This makes them slightly more expensive than Sigma Aldrich, which had 350 grams for $140.00


Britt, I first contacted National Refrigerants, and it was them that directed me to United Refrigeration as their wholesaler. I haven't actually called them on the phone, just been getting no response via email or their contact form. So I'll probably try and give them a call.

[n00b 0f l337]

Any results?
To me I'd have gotten the 5lber and sold it off after getting what you wanted out of it. Or splitting it with someone :waves:

[mytekcontrols]

Any results?
To me I'd have gotten the 5lber and sold it off after getting what you wanted out of it. Or splitting it with someone :waves:

It just pisses me off that I can't get a small amount at a reasonable price. It just seems like everyone's got their hands in the pot with all the extra charges.

i do understand what you are saying about splitting the cost, but I am still holding out for a while longer to see if I can find someone in the US that has one of those disposables they want to get rid of for a good price. In the meantime I have plenty of other aspects of the project to work on to keep me busy.

[mytekcontrols]

Thanks to Adam for steering me in the right direction, I finally got pure iso-Butane at a reasonable cost.

As it turns out there is a company called Wall Lenk that makes a laboratory butane burner, mainly used by small dental offices for sterilizing instruments. The fuel that they provide turns out to be pure iso-Butane (see MSDS), and is packaged in 5.5oz disposable cylinders. The manufacturer doesn't sell these items to the public, and I soon found out that their normal distributors don't either (gotta be a Dentist or work in a Dental Office).

Anyway I ended up buying 4 cylinders for $11.79 each from an Ebay company called Med-Supply-Online.

Here's my Wall Lenk iso-Butane stash (with one more on it's way)...
Wall_Lenk_65F.jpg

Not knowing exactly what kind of piercing adapter would be required, I ordered only the fuel to begin with, hoping that my R-134a adapter might work. After the fuel arrived, I could see that my my adapter was just not going to hack it, so I ordered one of the Wall Lenk lab burners which I'm sure can be adapted to my needs.

Wall Lenk #65 Lab Burner...
Wall_Lenk_65_Lab_Burner.jpg

I spoke with the owner of Med-Supply-Online about his stocking situation for this product, and if it would be ok to post a link in these forums. He said that they would have this product available in an ongoing capacity, and would offer discounted shipping dependent on how many are ordered at one time. So here are the links...

Store front: Med-Supply-Online

Fuel: Wall Lenk #65F 5.5oz iso-Butane

Burner: Wall Lenk #65 Lab Burner Head

Burner Complete: Wall Lenk #65 Lab Burner Head and 5.5oz iso-Butane Fuel


I made two separate orders (one for 4 cylinders of fuel, and the other for the Burner Complete package, thus giving me a total of 5 fuel cylinders) so I ended up paying a bit more for shipping, but even so the total came out to $113.00. Not bad considering that the best alternative deal I could find would have cost me $140.00 for 350 grams, and I ended up with over twice that amount (780 grams).

I'll be transferring all of the iso-Butane into a standard 15lb refrigerant recovery tank having a dip tube. Thus making it easier then using it directly from the bottles and more accurate when weighing it into my units.

[n00b 0f l337]

Good to hear a start to a success story.

[mytekcontrols]

Wall Lenk #65 Burner Head arrived today.

Wall_Lenk_65_Burner.jpg

Here it is disassembled.

Wall_Lenk_Burner_Disassembled.jpg

And here it is modified to accept standard 1/4" refrigeration hose.

Wall_Lenk_Burner_Modified.jpg

What I did was re-thread the burner to 5/16"-24, and drill and tap a standard 1/8" NPT-1/4" Male Flare fitting the same. I then used some rectorseal on the threads, and assembled my new adapter.

It works great

Edit: I noticed a small amount of butane leaking, so I cleaned off the Rectorseal, fluxed it up, and silver soldered it. Now it really works.

Edit: Just transferred all 5 bottles into a recovery tank. I now have 27 ounces of Iso-Butane for my CryoBUG experiments

[n00b 0f l337]

Awesome. Glad to see this worked out.

[mytekcontrols]

Awesome. Glad to see this worked out.

Yeah so am I.

Unlike a piercing valve situation, where once you screw in the pressure tap you are committed to extract the contents before the adapter can be removed. These bottles have a built-in depression valve that allows you to remove the burner head/refrigerant adapter anytime without loosing any gas (kinda like the ones on the green camping butane bottles).

[n00b 0f l337]

Now I have to find some!

[mytekcontrols]

Now I have to find some!

Check out those links I gave a few posts back. Med-Supply-Online still has both the fuel and the burner in stock.

[Big SturL]

Nice to hear that you finally found some at a reasonable price. Here in Norway, "normal" refrigerants like R134a, R507, R410 and so on come with "environment taxes" which are almost 150% of the gas price itself! 1kg of say R507 is 120-140$, so basically 10 times (!) the price of what I believe you pay.

I repair appliances for a living, and we're just now starting to do refrigeration work - that is, change compressors, charge gas and so forth. Haven't had the tools or capacity thus far... Here, all freezers and refrigerators use R600a, apart from side-by-side types (which conveniently are called "american refrigerators"). We can get these small 55g containers for about $16.

May I ask what you needed the isobutane for?

[n00b 0f l337]

Autocascade stage0 aux condenser refrigerant

[Big SturL]

Aha..! Yes, I have some vague memories from my past years here, where I learned that you could use a refrigerant which has a relatively low "saturation point" (better term?) in order to more easily condense the "tougher" refrigerants in an autocascade.

Is it like that, or am I remembering it all wrong?

[Big SturL]

[hijack]

Here in Norway, "normal" refrigerants like R134a, R507, R410 and so on come with "environment taxes" which are almost 150% of the gas price itself!

I was really off with my estimate above. After checking an updated pricelist, I found that the taxes are between 136%-323% (!!!) on "normal" refrigerants. If I were to legally buy 1kg of R507 (which I reckon is not attainable, and I'll need to buy a minimum of 5-10kg), it would cost me $160.... Add another $170 in deposit for the container. Norway just isn't cut out for hobby-refrigeration... Oh well, guess I'll have to resort to BBQ-gas.
[/hijack]

[mytekcontrols]

Nice to hear that you finally found some at a reasonable price. Here in Norway, "normal" refrigerants like R134a, R507, R410 and so on come with "environment taxes" which are almost 150% of the gas price itself! 1kg of say R507 is 120-140$, so basically 10 times (!) the price of what I believe you pay.

I repair appliances for a living, and we're just now starting to do refrigeration work - that is, change compressors, charge gas and so forth. Haven't had the tools or capacity thus far... Here, all freezers and refrigerators use R600a, apart from side-by-side types (which conveniently are called "american refrigerators"). We can get these small 55g containers for about $16.

May I ask what you needed the isobutane for?

Adam thanks for answering this question, I've been off in my own world lately and haven't checked back in for awhile. And yes the isobutane is being used as the warmest boiling refrigerant in a blend with 3 other gases to power a small autocascade system I am developing.

The source I mentioned on EBay dried up for a bit, so I ended up buying some more through IQ Dental Supply. After factoring in a qty discount for six cans + Hazmat Fee + Shipping, it ended up being $15 per 5.5 oz can (155 grams). Suprizingly much cheaper then what you get it for. Although the stuff I'm buying wasn't intended to be used for refrigeration (high purity fuel for a dentist's sterilizing burner).

[sdumper]

Adam thanks for answering this question, I've been off in my own world lately and haven't checked back in for awhile. And yes the isobutane is being used as the warmest boiling refrigerant in a blend with 3 other gases to power a small autocascade system I am developing.

The source I mentioned on EBay dried up for a bit, so I ended up buying some more through IQ Dental Supply. After factoring in a qty discount for six cans + Hazmat Fee + Shipping, it ended up being $15 per 5.5 oz can (155 grams). Suprizingly much cheaper then what you get it for. Although the stuff I'm buying wasn't intended to be used for refrigeration (high purity fuel for a dentist's sterilizing burner).

Shoot they are all sold out heck even the burners are sold out.

Was wondering if anyone tried ordering either of these of the internet and had them shipped here:
Ebay



Amazon:

Well I bought it from Amazon for approx 11.00 for 210 grams and paid 29.00 for 1 to 3 day shipping...

[mytekcontrols]

Shoot they are all sold out heck even the burners are sold out.

Was wondering if anyone tried ordering either of these of the internet and had them shipped here:
Ebay



Amazon:

Well I bought it from Amazon for approx 11.00 for 210 grams and paid 29.00 for 1 to 3 day shipping...

Scott that Ebay source looks interesting, but I'm wondering how much the shipping would add. Glad to see you found some locally.

I would expect that we should start seeing this stuff more readily available over here since EPA gave their seal of approval about a year ago. It'll just take a little while before R600a refrigerators become more common place in the states. And when that happens, the replacement refrigerant will be soon to follow.

[sdumper]

Well I finally got around to trying to buy some to mix with some r14 and I cant find it anywhere

Does anyone have any updated info for Med Supply Online or another reasonable US source for r600a?

[n00b 0f l337]

Air gas was willing to sell me "some". A "small" bottle. A "quaint" amount....

I had to buy 200 lbs.

[sdumper]

200lbs are you kidding me

I really don't like Airgas...

[n00b 0f l337]

I'm waiting on a response on a supplier for isobutane though of 10kg quantities. I'll let you know what I turn up.

[sdumper]

Thanks again Adam!!