Re: [DIYbio] Miniprep without EDTA

It's really easy, but somewhat hazardous, to make your own potassium acetate. You can get potassium hydroxide cheaply online, and titrate a solution oud it with acetic acid (vinegar).

Two things about vinegar:
One, 'distilled' vinegar isn't itself distilled: it means, rather, that it was fermented using a very rapid fermentation process from distilled ethanol. So, there are fair odds that it's not a pure or sterile product. However, in a miniprep that's probably not a big issue.

Two, vinegar is about 5%, pretty weak for titrating etc.. But, I gather you can easily get stronger acid by boiling off some water, because the boiling point of acetic acid is slightly higher and it doesn't form an azeotrope with water. Once the concentration is high enough, you can also crystallise pure acetic acid from solution by putting it in the fridge. However, BE WARNED: high-purity acetic acid is a pretty strong acid, and can burn skin, eyes or lungs, or react vigorously and perhaps dangerously with other chemicals. Please don't 'titrate' by dropping crystals of KOH in it, for example!

Cory: thanks for the protocol! Can't wait to follow that link on my laptop. License?

Cory Tobin <cory.tobin@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Is the KCl relly necessary? Can't be replaced by NaCl?
>
>You need a potassium ion. In the commercial miniprep kits (ie.
>Qiagen) they use potassium acetate, but you can only get that from
>chemical suppliers. You can get KCl at the hardware store. It is
>used in water softener tanks. I actually found it at a grocery store.
>
>
>> What about Ethanol instead of Isopropanol?
>> Feasible?
>
>Yes, I used isopropanol because I thought people would have easy
>access to 100% isopropanol whereas 100% ethanol is more difficult to
>find.
>
>
>> (lye is NaOH, right? )
>
>Yes.
>
>
>-cory
>
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