Sunday, February 27, 2011

What is dimethyl sulfoxide?



Dimethyl sulfoxide, also known as DMSO, is an organosulfur compound. DMSO is a colorless, low-toxic liquid. In addition, DMSO is a polar aprotic solvent, meaning that it can dissolve ions along with polar protic solvents, but does not have an acidic hydrogen in its structure. DMSO is also miscible in organic compounds and water, meaning that it will form a homogeneous solution when mixed with an organic compound or water.

Now for some "technical" information about DMSO:

  • Boiling point: 189°C
  • Molar mass: 78.13 g/mol
  • Melting point: 18.5°C
  • Vapor pressure at 20°C: 59.4 Pa

DMSO is actually a by-product from the process of converting wood into wood pulp. This process also creates dimethyl sulfide, which, when oxidated with oxygen or nitrogen dioxide, can create DMSO.

DMSO has a wide variety of uses, ranging from biological and medicinal to everyday household uses. DMSO, while studied greatly throughout the years, is still not understood very well, due to the controversy surrounding its various uses in medical treatments. For example, in 1965 an Irish woman died due to DMSO treatment for a sprained wrist, causing all DMSO studies to come to a halt. The FDA later approved DMSO for treatment of interstitial cystitis, a bladder disease. Only then did DMSO studies begin to expand.

2 comments:

  1. A very good and informative article indeed. It helps me a lot to enhance my knowledge, I really like the way the writer presented his views.
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  2. Wow! This post made me learn a lot about the dimethyl sulfoxide which is actually not that popular among people and most of them had no idea about that. Thank you very much. This will update people about this. Surely this will help a lot of people!
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