🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <921211171031.20400aba@FNALD.FNAL.GOV>,
ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE wrote:
[munch]
> here, some has been sent privately.  Us commercial glass cleaner some say 
> (contain chromic acid), others say DON'T USE CHROMIC ACID!  So I have to look 

The problem with chromic acid is that chromium(VII) is toxic and not nice
to put down drains.  Chromic acid is a great glass cleaner, but other,
alkaline systems are as good and less toxic.

> My brother is pushing me to build a vapor degreaser.  The plan at the moment 
> is to buy a 24 cup coffee maker and to put a copper cooling coil in the top of 
> it and to load it with perchlorethylene.  I guess this will then be a 
> perchlorethylene percolator.  (The basket is of course removed.)  This should 
> work great to clean the Lithium.  The problem is then to get it into an inert 
> atmosphere before it oxidizes. 

Of course, the lithium will react with the perchloroethylene, especially
after you heat it up.

Why not rinse the oil off of the lithium with xylene or hexane, leave it
covered with a small amount of xylene, place it in your glove bag, and then
remove it from the solvent and let it dry?  If you keep a flow of argon
through the bag the solvent vapors will be swept out.

> I bought a box of vinyl gloves a while back with the idea of making my own 
> glove box.  Now I am worried that they are not safe to use as they are likely 
> full of plasticizer(sp?).  Would rubber gloves be better?

We use thin cotton gloves to handle pieces (like sources and lenses) that
go into mass spectrometer vacuum systems.  This assumes the gloves are
clean
and that we will not sweat through them.  The gloves are cleaned by washing
in water, then acetone, then hexane.

> Please keep all the good advice coming.  
> 
> Tom Droege

We'll keep it coming, you have to decide how good it is.

Regards,
Carl Ijames