Why is acetone kept in plastic bottles if it melts plastic?
In: Chemistry
Plastic is a type of material, not a single material. You can compare to metals which is a type of material, not a single material. Regular steals then rust if you expose them to water and oxygen but stainless steals do not still both are metals.
Some plastic can be dissolved by acetone but others can’t. Acetone is likely in HDPE (High-density polyethylene) bottles. I do not have acetone in a plastic bottle at home, if you have one you can check it for the material. If it is HDPE you have a 2 in size a range of arrow like [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Symbol_Resin_Code_2_HDPE.svg)
You can look at different plastic chemical resistance at [https://www.plasticsintl.com/chemical-resistance-chart](https://www.plasticsintl.com/chemical-resistance-chart)
Acetone does not “melt plastic”. Acetone dissolves or is dissolved by many plastics, but hardly all of them. All you have to do is choose a plastic which does not dissolve with acetone.
Many plastics dissolve in water, too, but plastic water bottles still exist because even more plastics do *not* dissolve in water.
There are a huge number of different plastics out there with different physical and chemical properties.
There are *lots* of different plastics, and acetone only dissolves some of them.
PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and styrofoam (polystyrene) are two plastics that break down from acetone exposure, but you can make an acetone container out of polyethylene, polypropylene or Teflon – and I’m sure there are plenty of others, too.
Not all plastic is created equal, there are many different chemicals that can make many different plastics with different properties and purposes. PET and PVC are both plastics, but the former is used for things like water bottles due to its clarity and flexibility and the latter is used for industrial uses like piping for plumbing, as an example.
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