Triclosan Purchasing

[hpfanatic]

Hello!

I am looking to purchase triclosan in a powder form. Triclosan is a common active ingredient in antimicrobial soaps. My investigation deals with resistance evolving from disinfectants and I was wondering if someone could tell me if it is a) possible for me to purchase triclosan as an individual and b) how/ where I may do so.

Thanks a lot!
Nonie

[deleted-71827]

Hi Nonie!
Your project sounds really interesting, although I would suggest you ask your parents for help if you want to purchase triclosan. An internet search of "buy triclosan" might yield some results-check this website out
http://buy.ecplaza.net/search/1s1nf20se ... losan.html
Good luck, hope this helped!

[deleted-71684]

What exactly do you need the Triclosan for? Depending on what type of purity you need you can purchase several grades of Triclosan from Sigma-Aldrich (the leading scientific chemical supply company for most laboratories around the world). If you are doing some type of molecular analysis or using it for bacterial cultures, I would recommend purchasing HPLC purified Triclosan (i think you should also read a little about HPLC so that you know why the Triclosan that is purified using this method is so pure), but this may be prohibitively expensive depending on how much Triclosan you require for your project. It may also be helpful to note that Triclosan is also referred to as Irgsan.

If you need anymore help (navigating the Sigma-Aldrich webpage, or about how much Triclosan to purchase/use) do not hesitate to reply to this post. Also, if you dont mind me asking, what is your project about?

[hpfanatic]

What exactly do you need the Triclosan for? Depending on what type of purity you need you can purchase several grades of Triclosan from Sigma-Aldrich (the leading scientific chemical supply company for most laboratories around the world). If you are doing some type of molecular analysis or using it for bacterial cultures, I would recommend purchasing HPLC purified Triclosan (i think you should also read a little about HPLC so that you know why the Triclosan that is purified using this method is so pure), but this may be prohibitively expensive depending on how much Triclosan you require for your project. It may also be helpful to note that Triclosan is also referred to as Irgsan.

If you need anymore help (navigating the Sigma-Aldrich webpage, or about how much Triclosan to purchase/use) do not hesitate to reply to this post. Also, if you dont mind me asking, what is your project about?

Thank you for the information. The project is about how different disinfectants could possibly create bacterial resistance.
I am going to use a disk diffusion test and determine if the zone of inhibition size is decreasing.

The problem is, I thought I had all my disinfectants, but then I realized that the triclosan was in a soap form, and was not sure how I would be able to use the soap for the experiment. Any ideas how to soak a filter paper disk in soap?

If you would like more information about the project, I can certainly provide it.

Please let me know if you have any ideas for any disinfecting sprays or other products I could use that contain triclosan. I'm not sure if the "pure" triclosan can be sent to me. The Sigma-Aldrich webpage may be very useful if I can get the triclosan shipped to my school.

Thanks again
~~Nonie

[deleted-71684]

I would recommend that you not use soaps or other sprays containing triclosan because this will present a huge flaw with your project. The variable that you are trying to isolate and test is the effect of triclosan (alone i presume). If you use soaps and sprays containing triclosan, these products will most surely contain many other chemicals (possibly ethanol, SDS, surfactants, etc.) that will confound your data. Look at it this way; if you used regular handsoap that contains triclosan as an ingredient, you are not testing the effect of the triclosan but the effect of the entire soap formulation.

I think that ordering the Triclosan is the best thing to do, because the product from Sigma-Aldrich is HPLC purified, and will essentially allow you to test the single variable that you are interested in. Here is the general Sigma-Aldrich webpage: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/Area_of_Int ... tates.html

I searched for Triclosan in the product search tab, and found Irgasan (which is a chemical synonym for Triclosan). Here is the direct link to the product page.

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/sea ... LUKA/72779

Click on the pricing link, and select USA as the country the product will be shipped to; and you should see that it costs about $30 for 5 g, and $70 for 25 g. I dont know what concentrations of Triclosan you will be using for your experiment, or how many replicates you will perform of each study, but I reccomend that you carefully plan out how you are going to do your experiment so that you know exactly how much Triclosan you need.
I would be more than happy to review your project plan, and help with any further questions concerning your project.

Good Luck!

[hpfanatic]

Vtrip-

I have looked at this link : http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/Facul ... %20LAB.pdf

In this case the person used a solution of 17.5% Ethanol and 82.5% distilled water along with the triclosan. Do you think that would be OK?

I actually need the triclosan by Monday (bad planning on my part, not thinking ahead about the soap!), so I will look into if they do overnight shipping and how quickly I can get the triclosan. I also wonder if my school will be OK with me ordering triclosan to be shipped there...

[hpfanatic]

Also, I just talked to a representative at Sigma Aldrich. He said it would be easier to order if there was a professor with an account already set up. I am wondering whether anyone knows of any professors in Michigan who would be willing to help me.

[deleted-71827]

Hi!
One of the easiest ways to find a professor is to look up local colleges and universities and search through the faculty webpages. Usually there will be short bios and hopefully you will find someone who is interested in the same area. You can then send an email to them asking them if they would be willing to help you, and hopefully you will find someone who says yes...Hope this helps, good luck!

[deleted-71684]

Glad you are getting started on the project, and the link you have is useful. I would suggest trying the mixture of Ethanol and water, but do remember to do a control experiment. Soak the filter paper disks in the ethanol and water mixture (minus the triclosan) and plate them. Then make a triclosan + ethanol + water mixture, and plate that as your experimental treatment. I would also reccomend trying to dissolve the triclosan in pure water as a second experiment (not using ethanol) because the ethanol may kill the bacteria and provide you with a false zone of inhibition.