Fusor Forums

Just got a quote for CP-grade deuterium, 50 liter LB / CGA-350 cylinder from Advanced Specialty Gases, which unlike many sellers will refill their own LB cylinders.

Cost of the bottle and first fill: $525.00 + UPS.
Cost of a refill: $475.

Good grief, this stuff has gone WAY up in price since I last checked! My previous cylinder was bought four years ago from Spectra and, with shipping, wasn't over $200.

If anyone knows who's able to beat the above quote today, let me know. I'm still waiting to hear from some of the other players.

-Carl

Woah! That price has more than doubled over the $220 I payed them 2 years ago. I referred someone to ASG two months ago and they payed essentially the same price I did. Something must have happened very recently that led to this price increase.

I paid $275.00 one month ago, as per Brian's suggestion.

wayne

At $500.00 per bottle, even I might consider the electrolysis route even though it is a struggle. D2O is a lot cheaper per unit contained D2 than this recent rash of cylinder gas price increases.

Opps, I haven't rechecked the 100ml D2O prices lately. Has that gone up over the normal 50-60 bucks???

Richard Hull

Well, I got a quote from Matheson that is more reasonable, but also is for more gas. They have a #4 cylinder (100 standard liters) for about $530, which is unquestionably refillable and which I think I can pick up locally from their Albuquerque facility and skip a HAZMAT charge. However, that's an awful lot of gas! They don't offer deuterium in the LB cylinders. Haven't heard back from Spectra. I also have not tried going to our local welding supply store (AirCo or somesuch).

One thing that surprised me about the ASG quote is the relatively minimal cost of the cylinder and CGA-350 fitting (only $50) in contrast with the god-awful price of the gas. I hope they checked the right grade of gas.

When I end up buying something I will let folks know what I do. This market is obviously volatile. Also, I have a nagging suspicion that the recent crackdowns on the hobby chemical dealers are going to impact the availability of research gases before too long.

Thanks Brian, Wayne, and Richard for chiming in. Wayne, I reckon your project is getting close to "cooking" some of that deuterium?

-Carl

I would call ASG and ask for an explanation of the price hike. You are ordering 99% purity and not something rediculous like 99.999% right?

There is little explanation for a 200% price increase in only a month, save for a pretty bad foul-up/accident at whatever plant is producing their Deuterium supply.

The water cooling is tested.
We are wiring up the system to be USB controlled.
I will pull a vacuum next week, then use the RGA for leaks and
contamination measurements.
This is fun, but slow.

wayne

I found that D2 from ASG was at least half as expensive as some of the competitors. I got quotes from Praxair, Spectra, Airgas, Scott, Fisher, and a few others. ASG was also very easy to deal with compared to others.

DO NOT ORDER OR INQUIRE WITH SPECTRA GASES.

Hi Edmo,

Do you want to elaborate on your issues with Spectra? I dealt with them back in '02 or '03 and had a positive experience and as I mentioned, did not pay too much.

Thanks,
Carl

On ASG website , they list deuterium as 99.999%. We really don't need they level of purity? Carl, let me know the best you find as I am about to get a tank soon. Richard, I agree , that if prices are this high , electrolysis is a cheaper way to go, abet, harder to use

I still have my July 2004 invoice from ASG, and I ordered 99.7% Deuterium, which is CP grade. I still cannot for the life of me figure out why it suddenly got so expensive. Maybe CP grade is out of stock, and they mistook Carl's request for that and instead quoted him on the high purity stuff that they did have.

Don't try Spectra Gases as they now have you sign some rediculous "Nuclear Non-Proliferation" sheet essentially stating that you will not be making an atomic bomb with this stuff. It is a silly company policy that no law says is required.

Here are some quotes from my inquiry with the Spectra Gases sales rep.

"I will also need to know your intended application for this product since deuterium and deuterated products are regulated by the government should we have the product available."

"Thank you for the application summary. Deuterium regulations have been getting strictly enforced since the creation of the Homeland security Dept of government. Since it is "nuclear proliferation" material we are taking this very seriously, not to mention there is personal civil penalty for anyone who is involved in selling this product without proper government approvals."

Oh it gets worse, keep reading from the next email....
"This applies to any and all deuterated products. You can see all of the regulations by using the following link to the Code of Federal Regulations part 110
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle ... r/part110/
It really applies to certain activities and uses and if you are exporting outside of the country. The NRC sets very precise amounts of each type of product that you can ship in a single shipment as well as annually."

And finally from the last email to which realized this company had totally lost it...

"The government restricts what you can do with Deuterium even in the
united states. If you are doing things like tritium production and it
is not under a DOE contract or with permission and license to do so you can be in trouble. Since I did not know if you are exporting the
deuterium or not I must ask the regulatory questions and be sure that
you understand the government position as it related to deuterated
products."

I searched on the Spetra Gases sales person's name and found a fire and brimstone letter written to the FDA about GMO foods. I never did hear back from them. Praxair however did fax me a non-proliferation form but again it was cheaper through ASG.

Well, here's an update:

Why did ASG's quote look so high?

>I apologize as I priced your request for some reason as Xenon >instead of
>Deuterium.
>
>You are correct and for that use a price of $250.00 for the 50 Liters.
>
>Refills would be $225.00

Not bad at all. (Their price for xenon looks reasonable too, should I ever need it.)

Now onto the matter of Spectra Gases. Indeed as Edmo observed, they must fashion themselves as some kind of Homeland Security apparatchiks these days:

>I will need to know what you are using this gas for (specific
>research application) since D2 is regulated by the government.

Their price on D2 is $275 with the cylinder, and refills are $185. So their gas is significantly cheaper than ASG's, but their cylinder is more expensive. Obviously, a consideration of this tradeoff is a moot point if Spectra is going to make the customer's specific application a matter of their interest and their records as a condition of sale. I wrote back asking the rep to cite the law that is the basis of her broad request. Other than the shipping regs for compressed gases and the export regs, I'm not aware of anything. Their open-ended demand to know what I'm doing is very different from simply asking for an assurance that I will not be exporting their product. Intrusive, unjustified, and excessively broad demands like these from Spectra indicate appeasement of the "fear science" culture, and unfortunately for both of us it means I cannot consider giving them my business until things change. This is especially unfortunate since I bought deuterium from Spectra three or four years ago and was treated like an adult human being back then.

On the other hand, I'm hesitant to construe the rep's rant to the FDA as firm evidence of personal characteristics that should concern her customers. Yes, she does mention "sin" and "crimes against nature" in there, but moves on to make specific rational arguments. You know, sometimes you need to embellish your argument with Bible-thumping Dobson-esque rhetoric in order to be given one iota of credence in our present government. (Why do you think our Dear Leader pledged $50B to fight AIDS in Africa? Because he's a charitable guy with a keen sense of what's best for the world? Um, hardly--it's because Bono thumped a Bible at Jesse Helms back in '01. True story.)

-Carl

The only place I could find the word "Deuterium" in CFR 110 was with regards to export, not domestic use.

Heavy water (99.9%) is still at $55 per 100g from wilmad labglass.
http://www.wilmad-labglass.com/group/2147

Andrew Seltzman
www.rtftechnologies.org

What concerned me was that here you have a sales person with incomplete facts, that's scared of science to begin with, and that's quick to contact the government for a solution. I know I'm not doing anything wrong, but I don't really want to sit in a room explaining that to suits because some sales lady has lost her mind. Fear is what's driving this war and it's eroding away our liberties and freedoms.

Well, I ended up getting the best deal--by far--from Matheson. All who bought deuterium recently, read this and WEEP:

> Here is your quote as requested;
>
> Deuterium CP 99.7% 1.77cf 50L
>
> Part#G1211276
>
> $157.00 2-3 WEEKS LEAD TIME

Heck, I won't even pay shipping on this because I can go pick it up on arrival at my local Matheson distributor. The bottle is refillable by Matheson. The one minor downside is that Matheson cannot supply the lecture bottle with the CGA-350 flammable gas fitting, only the CGA-170 LB fitting. Should be easy to get an adapter. I did have to fill out a credit app and set up an account with them, but now that's done, it should be easy to get not only deuterium but whatever other specialty gases I might conceivably need.

-Carl

Carl,

Thanks for this info. I believe I'll order a 50L bottle from Matheson.... just in case.

Jon Rosenstiel

That was a very good price, indeed.

Richard Hull

$157.00 for the 50-l cylinder is exciting news, but even more so is the fact that, according to their catalog, they also offer a 20-l cylinder. Based on the pricing for the 50-l cylinder, I expect the price for the 20-l size might be well under $100, which is exciting for those of us with little cash.
I live only about 30 miles from the Newark, CA distribution center, so Matheson Tri-Gas is looking like a very attractive option. I attempted to register to use their online store on June 12th, but as of today my registration has yet to be activated (which apparently must be done manually on their end)...

Greg,
They say on their website that one should expect to receive an e-mail from them confirming registration within 2 hours, or at the latest the next morning.

I registered on the 22nd, also no word from them yet.

Hmmmm...

Jon Rosenstiel

When you buy gas, the majority of what you pay for is the bottle. I once bought a lecture bottle of 99.9% purity N2 for $100, and there's no way the 50L of N2 was worth more than a few dollars. I bet the bottle itself is about $100, and the D2 itself is probably on the order of 20-50 bucks.

indeed, most of the cost is likely the bottle. i used to fill some large O2 and acetyline bottles for about $20 each, but the initial investment was substantially larger.

Q

I e-mailed Matheson to find out why no response, their answer was that they don't ship to residential addresses. I guess they don't want to jack around with the little guy with his (or her) little order.

Jon Rosenstiel

Hi Jon,

My account uses my residential address for billing and my friendly pseudo-employer's address for shipping. You don't have to use Matheson's delivery service if you can pick up your own cylinders from their local depot. I think you should just call the local office and try to set up an account. The online thing was pretty much a dead end for me also.

-Carl