Cleaning acetonitrile bottles

Greetings. I am an art student constructing a sculpture from various
glassware. While scouring my University's campus for raw materials, I
came across two large brown glass bottles disposed of by our
biochemistry lab. The bottles are empty, but labeled to contain
acetonitrile.

I would like to clean these bottles so that they will be safe to
handle and hold other liquids. I've looked up information about this
chemical on the web and from the warnings printed on the bottle.
Although it sounds dangerous if mishandled, several friends from
premed said they routinely use the compound as a solvent in lab work
and don't think twice about it. I also caught a discussion on this
forum from a while back hinting at similar opinions.

Are these bottles salvageable? How can I clean them safely? What
about the plastic screw tops?

Thanks,
-Matthew

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Storing bottles in sanitizer?
    ... I have been questing for some time for a means of storing empty clean ... No matter how clean I get my bottles if they sit any ... legth of time they get some dust on the outside. ... again it undermines the whole "give them a quick rinse in sanitizer" ...
    (rec.crafts.brewing)
  • Re: Storing bottles in sanitizer?
    ... 1) keeping my clean bottles clean and 2) ... again it undermines the whole "give them a quick rinse in sanitizer" ...
    (rec.crafts.brewing)
  • Re: Do I Have It Backward?
    ... bottles really muck up your feet), ... clean the environment directly. ... I'm reminded of a third world train ... Sure enough there's a lot of trash next to ...
    (soc.culture.hawaii)
  • Re: Bottles
    ... What I've learned from my year experience - collect what you can, clean them good, and eventually if you get enough - you can sort them out and use like bottles for bottling. ... I don't like to save bottles with wine drops hardening inside, ... p.s. for labels, I'd recommend Avery "removable" labels, they even give free software to design your own labels. ...
    (rec.crafts.winemaking)
  • Re: Cleaning acetonitrile bottles
    ... biochemistry lab. ... The bottles are empty, but labeled to contain ... How can I clean them safely? ... That will saponify any CH3CN into the sodium salt of vinegar ...
    (sci.chem)