I’m finding that the names Sodium Tertiary Butoxide and Sodium Tertiary Butylate are sometimes used more or less interchageably. What’s that about?
IANAC, but in cases like these one of the following two often apply:
[ol]
[li]The two names refer to the same compound. Compounds often have various systematic and common names. For example, chloroform, trichloromethane, and methyl trichloride all refer to the same compound. Which term you use depends on your audience, or your publisher’s style guide, or your personal whim.[/li][li]The two names refer to two different compounds which are functionally identical for certain practical purposes. For example, dextromethorphan hydrochloride and dextromethorphan hydrobromide are different compounds, but pretty much the same thing as far as a pharmacist is concerned, since they have the same effects and side-effects at the same dosages. It’s therefore usually acceptable to substitute one for the other, at least when discussing or preparing medications.[/li][/ol]
IAAC
I use sodiumt-butoxide on occassion. I have been a chemist for years and this is the first I’ve heard of sodium t-butylate. It does not come up as a synonym for sodium t-butoxide in SciFinder; however, one place that sells it has claimed it is a synonym. I would guess that the people that call it sodium t-butylate are sticking to some old school name that is no longer accepted by chemists.
Occasionally these names are used to disguise the true nature of a compound. I have seen MTBE also abbreviated as TBME. It was clearly the same thing, but with all the environmental hazards of MTBE being known, I think they switched the order to pretend it was something else.
IAAC
I came across something similar today… quite confusing! I was looking at the mobile phase a brand new HPLC column had been stored in, and it was listed as a mix of water and MECN.
Since I was expecting either Methanol (MeOH) or Acetonitrile (ACN) as I typically see them typed that way, it definitely gave me pause.
We eventually figured out that it was MeCN, methyl cyanide (aka acetonitrile!). Apparently Phenomenex’s computer was stuck in Caps Lock.
Though I am embarrassed to admit that I (and another chemist!) had to look at the bottle of ACN to confirm it’s chemical structure! We briefly thought “methyl ethyl cyanide” which didn’t make any sense at all!
Not that it really mattered… I needed to put it in Methanol anyways!
And to actually address the OP…
The “-ate” suffix is commonly used to describe an anion… think “glutamate” for the anion of “glutamic acid”. Sodium butoxide is the salt made from the butylate anion and sodium. “T-butyric acid” would be the acid for t-butylate. t-butoxide is just a different nomenclature.
Common names, IUPAC, chemists, biochemists… if you can get everyone to agree on a name, you’d win a Nobel prize.
not quite, butylate is from a carboxylic acid, butoxide is from an alcohol
actually there should not be a t-butyric acid as the structure cannot exist , n- or isobutyric acid is OK.
scm1001 is right. I’ve only seen the ate suffix when one is considering the salt of a carboxylic acid. t-Butyric acid is a structural imposibility. The best you can do is trimethylacetic acid.
mnemosyne - Its funny how people in different fields of chemistry think. Knowing that you were doing HPLC (which is almost always reverse phase) if I saw MECN on a bottle I wouldn’t think twice and would assume it was MeCN. On the otherhand, if I saw ACN on a bottle, I would say the people that labeled the bottle were idiots, because in no way is that a rational abreviation for acetonitrile.
So does anyone know where I can get sodium t-butoxide in less than industrial quantities? Sargent-welch doesn’t carry it under any name.
Right, of course. I wasn’t thinking so much about the structure, just trying to figure out where the names might have come from. I defer to people who actually took the time to think about the question 
As for acetonitrile… we abbreviate it as ACN all the time, and frankly, I don’t know why. It’s a lot faster to write in our notebooks, though, and since we only use it as a solvent, we aren’t interested in the actual chemical structure of it. I’ve never seen “ACN” actually written on a bottle or supplier label other than what would have been added with a sharpie, though. I was familiar with MeCN (with the lower case e) but seeing MECN threw me, as I was assuming the E actually stood for something!
Another funny little story (well, funny to us 3 chemists in a training room full of office workers), in a WHMIS training session they were showing us an MSDS of “Ethanol”. On the form was the common name: “Ethanol”. Synonyms: “hydroxide éthylique” (ethyl hydroxide). Technically, true, but I have never heard anyone bother to use that name! You’d think ethyl alcohol would have been a more likely name to put on the form.
And it occurs to me that WHMIS is Canadian, so here’s the wiki: Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System - Wikipedia Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System… MSDS is the Material Safety Data Sheets.
Ew. “Butoxide” looks, to my layman’s eye, like something you get if your butt rusts.
No, no that’s buttoxide and it is a nasty smelling gas.
I’m sorry to say that I have a pretty strict policy about telling people I don’t know on the internet where to get potentially hazardous substances. My general feeling is that you don’t know where to get it, you probably shouldn’t have it. Sodium t-butoxide is a pretty specific base with pretty specific properties and I can’t imagine what anybody might do with it. Perhaps with a better description of why you need it, I could be persuaded to give you the name of a store that would be equally suspicious of an ordinary citizen ordering it.
That said, you haven’t looked very hard.
Fair enough. No hard feelings. Thank you for your posts. “Specific properties” is generally why anyone uses anything, eh? Research is like philosophy. Most people can’t imagine that someone would consider it amusing. I’m an amateur, no doubt, and exploring a field new to me. But the pursuit of knowledge is open to amateurs and I find it more compelling than other amusements.