n-Heptane

About This Product

Much of the demand for n-heptane, the straight-chain C7 paraffin (C7H16, CAS 142-82-5), comes from pharmaceutical plants and fuel-testing laboratories. It is a clear, colourless, volatile liquid boiling at about 98 °C, immiscible with water and a strong solvent for oils, fats, waxes and non-polar resins.

Fuel testers use it as the zero of the octane scale: alone it knocks readily, and blended with isooctane, which stands for 100, it forms the primary reference fuels for rating gasoline. Pharmaceutical users choose it on toxicology. Unlike n-hexane it is not converted in the body to a neurotoxic diketone, and the ICH Q3C residual solvents guideline puts it in its lowest-concern class, so it routinely replaces hexane in extraction, crystallisation and washing.

For those duties the 99 percent grade limits the trace impurities that count: total aromatics 50 ppm, sulphur 1 ppm, water 50 ppm and bromine index 50 mg Br/100 g, all maxima. Initial boiling point is 94 °C minimum, dry point 99 °C maximum, density 675–690 kg/m³ at 20 °C and Saybolt colour +28 minimum. A 97 percent grade is also offered, its full specification confirmed at quotation. Other uses are natural product extraction, adhesives and rubber cements, and laboratory and chromatographic work.

BG Petro Chemicals delivers n-heptane in 137 kg drums or ISO tanks, classified UN 1206, Class 3, PG II. It is highly flammable and an aspiration hazard; handle it according to the safety data sheet. Current specifications, the SDS and batch documentation are available on request.