Safety Case Study. Intrinsic Instability of Concentrated Solutions of Alcoholic Hydrogen Chloride: Potential Hazards Associated with Methanol

Methanolic hydrochloride is a commonly used reagent on the lab scale and on larger scales as well. It is commercially available or can be prepared by bubbling gaseous hydrogen chloride in methanol. After we experienced an incident using a concentrated solution, observations and data were collected. This allowed us to implement a few recommendations to prevent the recurrence and alert of a potential hazard that to our knowledge has not been clearly reported in the literature.