Testors liquid polystyrene cement

Don't know if you can in the UK, but here in the US I just buy MEK (methly-ethyl-ketone) at the local home improvement store. Lots cheaper and the same stuff.

In article , Larry Blanchard writes

May also be found under the name butanone (its official scientific name).

David

Methyl Ethyl Ketone is an official scientiific name too.

MEK was originally this, but they changed over to Butanone keeping the original trade name.

In article , Christopher A. Lee writes

No, it isn't. The IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) has a very formalised set of rules for naming chemical compounds, and it is only possible to have one valid name under those rules. The name for this compound is butanone.

Even under the previous system of nomenclature (which was superseded around half a century ago) the compound should have been called ethyl methyl ketone, as the radicals were to be quoted in alphabetical order. The name methyl ethyl ketone probably achieved popularity for no other reason than that it has a nice acronym, but I doubt it has ever been a "correct" name.

David

In article , David Littlewood writes

Oh, and by the way, the initial letters of chemical names are not capitalised.

David

I don't care if you call it pixie dust, it works!

I always heard you Brits were a bit pedantic :-).

A pedant writes: IUPAC is headquartered in Switzerland. Guy

And if Wikipedia is correct, that name is not butanone. It's "butan-2-one".

Aside:

I'm always suspicious of things claiming to be official. Who says is IUPAC the only body that can decide official names?

All kinds of things call themselves official, not all of them desirable. I recommend being unambiguous and referring to the naming body concerned, instead of saying "official".

-- Richard

In article , Richard Tobin writes

Well, Wikipedia is wrong. The IUPAC rules do not allow for redundant information; since there is only one possible structure for the name butanone, then any further specification is otiose.

It is the internationally-recognised body for the subject. There is no other.

I did.

I was only trying to help the OP to find the thing he was looking for, not start a war, but if people follow up with misinformation it does need to be corrected.

David

Interesting. The IUPAC provisional recommendation "Preferred IUPAC Names" (2004) uses butan-2-one as an example of a preferred IUPAC name (PIN) on pages 49 and 91:

As far as I can see there is no more recent version.

It also gives "ethyl methyl ketone" as the correct form of the functional class name of that chemical (page 49), so I don't see that that isn't also an "official" name.

-- Richard

In article , Richard Tobin writes

Interesting, thanks for finding that. The "2" is omitted in other IUPAC documents I have looked at, see for example

Seems to be a moving target - and para 14.3.3 of the document you cite even suggests the "2" is not required, as it is not needed to give an unambiguous structure.

Not sure if it ever got adopted, but still I agree influential.

...but not a preferred name (PIN) (and "methyl ethyl ketone" has never been correct).

Much too far OT though! For the non-chemistry-obsessed railway enthusiasts, the message is, if you need it, search for methyl ethyl ketone, MEK, or butanone, trade sellers will almost certainly be using one of those names - which is all I set out to say to the OP.

David

It's the body recognised by the various international professional societies of chemists, and will generally also be referenced by journals (so if you submit a paper that does not use IUPAC names it may be rejected or amended).

Science works by consensus, IUPAC is the body that codifies the consensus on naming. Guy

There has to be a common chemical nomenclature for the same reason there has to a common biological one: people need to know exactly what you are talking about.

Wolf K.