Naphtha & freezer safety

[reun]

Hi all,

I'm a relatively new member here and I have a few questions about safety with regard to naphtha and freezers.

I ran one extraction previously where I placed naphtha into a sealable glass food storage container and then placed it into my freezer for 24 hours. I noticed afterwards that I could still smell a bit of naphtha through the container, which concerned me, but the extraction was done, I cleaned the fridge and moved on with life, that was a while ago now, so the situation is in the past, but I don't want to repeat it.

Since then I experimented with a Kilner glass jar with a metal screw-on top, I placed some foil on top on the glass jar and then screwed the container, and I can't smell any naphtha leaks, but after reading about this, it looks like I shouldn't fully trust my nose. I was thinking about using a chilly bin or an insulated cooler box filled with ice and then leaving it outside, but I'm not sure if it will give me the sustained freezing temperatures needed here. So I'm not entirely sure about the best way forward. After all of that, I'm leaning towards alternative methods involving d-limonene, but I still wanted to check with the members of this forum on what the best practices are. I suppose ideally, you want some leak-proof media bottles with thick borosilicate and you want to use a dedicated freezer, but especially the dedicated freezer part is just not practical for a lot of people. I heard that a lot of people use Pyrex food containers, so I thought that it can't be all that bad...

 

[MrAcuminata]

Pyrex storage dishes with the flexible plastic lids, place a tight layer of foil on the dish then put the lid on over the top of the foil. Seals it up, the foil will prevent solvent reaction with the plastic. In fact it seals so well that it can be difficult to remove the lid after the freeze!

 

[reun]

Pyrex storage dishes with the flexible plastic lids, place a tight layer of foil on the dish then put the lid on over the top of the foil. Seals it up, the foil will prevent solvent reaction with the plastic. In fact it seals so well that it can be difficult to remove the lid after the freeze!

Ah, perfect, that's exactly what I'm doing now, but I was still very nervous about this setup. So, it's a safe way to go? It seemed so, but I just wanted to verify, because when I started researching this, I saw "fire hazard!" all over the place

 

[MrAcuminata]

Ah, perfect, that's exactly what I'm doing now, but I was still very nervous about this setup. So, it's a safe way to go? It seemed so, but I just wanted to verify, because when I started researching this, I saw "fire hazard!" all over the place

As long as you take the same precaution of fire hazards that you would with any work involving solvents, you'll be sweet. If you're worried about potential fume contamination in the freezer you can try wrapping the containers in cling wrap after the lid is nice and secure. I'm lucky that I have an empty freezer to work with, so I don't bother cling wrapping as it can be difficult to remove after which you don't want when time is of the essence. So the other option if you don't want to use cling wrap is to simply make sure there's no food in there when doing a freeze precip.