Building a Glove Box for Air Free Chemistry
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2020
- Can you convert a sand blasting cabinet to an air-free glovebox, using a cylinder of argon and too much tape? We give it a red hot go. Links::: Subreddit: / explosionsandfire
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Music is as usual from the Aphex Twin soundcloud dump, track name is:
- 1 Lmt - Věda a technologie
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The day this man discovers silicone sealers/caulking he will be unstoppable.
Teflon tape and epoxy resin
Lol I just posted the same thing. Like $4 a tube and you can lay 1 continuous bead.
The whole video my brain was screaming into its subjective void "fucking get the caulk gun and seal it goddamn it, it's easy and works c'mon tom!!" Of course I can't do any chemistry at all so just keep my bitching on the downlow ;)
Was just gonna say silicone lmao.
I like how you get a glovebox before a simple fumehood.
It's a choice for those who prioritize protecting their reactions over protecting themselves...
@@sealpiercing8476 a sacrifice had to be made...
the sky is natures fume hood
He really just needs to walk down the street on trash day and pick up a cabinet and a vacuum cleaner for that. A cabinet turned on the side with the bottom door removed makes a perfect fume hood. If you leave the bottom door on and add a latch you can even close it up to keep drafts out. An old vacuum cleaner with a funnel on the hose and stiff wire taped to the hose, lets you bend and move it over your reaction instead of having to suck huge volumes of air.
@@excitedbox5705 I mean, not really. You drop an oxidizer or have something that produces chlorine, it'll light it on fire or corrode the vacuum.
my suggestion is to seal it up real good, get that gopro in there, and then make hypergolic rocket fuels :D
Sick paint job as well
What he said
Imagine the confusion, relief, the horror of the paramedics and first responders on scene after his home chemistry shop blows up. Hey, at least it's not another meth lab this time!
@Space Fire In comparison to that other stuff, LOX seems downright comfy to work with.
Hypergolic fuels react with each other and not with oxygen.
Use an air compressor to test leaks with air first, or even nitrogen, rather than jumping into expensive argon.
Co2 is dirt cheap
@@nikpat6006 it is a lot less inert than N2 though, and air is even cheaper
Top mechanic tip:
Use water with dish soap in it to check for leaks around seals of your box, also works for checking for holes/broken seals in car tires.
Also, just to reiterate what tonnes of people have been mentioning, a silicone gasket maker from your local automotive shop should also be a decently cheap way to seal cracks that are letting air in/out.
Your hand should have it's own channel, it has a great personality and it's very expressive, it's a damn fine hand. Sorry I'm not saying you don't have a nice personality, you do, you're great...it's just hard to compete with should a classy hand.
It's getting a bit out of control isn't it haha
So right. I sometimes wonder if the camera hand isn't quietly resentful. Like a benched understudy, never gets the limelight.
I think... this *is* the hand's channel?
@@jamesg1367 Really should try the other hand now and then...
He is just showing off that he still has all his fingers.
Oh nice, now you can work in a pure oxygen atmosphere and not this pitiful 21 % poor people's atomosphere!
oxygen is for pleb people, I am above it now
oxygen is so 2019.
Oh sorry good Sir, I forgot its Australia, of cause this would be a high Ozone Environment with all those UV-Rays over there. how could I think of something this mundane like oxygen...
How to accidentally put your gloved hands inside a bomb 101. Reminder that steel burns vigorously in 100% oxygen
@@jogandsp So does diamond, really anything with hydrocarbons or iron. I'm kind of curious about chromium though....like, what about SS shavings?
Thoughts from a fellow chemistry student with extremely limited experience in air-sensitive chemistry:
1) Use a sealant that is much more flexible than the crappy hot glue. Probably silicone of some sort would be good?
2) Make lots of holes in the tubing that lets the inert gas in so you don't just have one single big stream of gas coming in (I think "redxpen" explained that stuff better than me).
3) Get yourself some delicious nitrogen gas (should be much much cheaper than argon). This way you can do the initial purging with argon (which is much better at getting rid of the oxygen since you can kinda fill it from the bottom). Afterwards, you can use nitrogen gas to keep a slight positive pressure inside the chamber. This way you'll be pretty much guaranteed that no oxygen seeps in after establishing the inert atmosphere, but you'll also save a lot of money (I reckon). Heck, even CO2 could work in some circumstances, although you'll obviously have to make sure that it won't react with anything before you try.
4) Do get yourself a flow-meter, as you suggested.
5) Building an antechamber/airlock could be a good idea, although maybe a bit difficult and time consuming. You could also just make another slightly smaller (closable) opening in the box. This way, if you forgot to put something in there (like a spatula or whatever), you can just crank up the nitrogen/argon stream while opening the lid and slowly putting the thing (e.g. spatula) inside without introducing much oxygen. I've done a little bit of air-sensitive chemistry (just in glassware, not in a glovebox), and keeping the reaction vessel at a positive pressure with nitrogen gas works perfectly fine if I for example need to add an addition funnel to a setup that should be air-free.
6) Don't waste any time trying to make a vacuum with that setup, it's not going to do you any good.
100% Silicone caulk is dirt cheap and should work for sealing. Look for the 'pond' or 'aquarium' safe stuff and it'll be just silicone suspended in acetic acid that evaporates off. Flexible and pretty much inert, so you can use it to seal things up to your heart's content
I can't tell how big the hole is over on the side, but he might be able to 3D something to fit onto that. My thoughts would be a silicone sealed door on inside with a similar mechanism as that on top for ease while using the gloves, and then an adapter to threaded schedule 80 PVC or metal piping. Cap the end with thread tape and a screw-on cap, and you have a pretty simple airlock. If I got the measurements for the hole, I could probably make a model and send it on Discord.
also an anti-static gun is very useful in the glovebox
I know it Smells like vinegar but I'm very certain it's some vinegar smelling silicon compound
My recommendations from having tried to seal in inert atmospheres with irregular DIY stuff:
1) More fasteners on that lid. The stiffness of the lid should be matched to the amount of compression your gasket needs to seal well, and without replacing the whole lid you can make it stiffer by adding more points of support. Going from 2 to 6-12 should be a big improvement and returns are more diminishing after that.
2) Silicone RTV is a great sealant. Go for stretchy stuff that adheres well and don't worry about strength, and use joints that work mechanically before you add the RTV.
Stuff I don't know from experience:
3) Is there some air-sensitive chemical that would work well to scavenge air and moisture? Ideally cheap and easy to handle. Zeolites would do well to get most of the moisture, and they're reusable, but I'm not sure what to do about oxygen. Trying to bring the air/moisture content down with flushing alone is going to use a lot of Ar.
Thanks for the tips!
I've heard about hand warmers being used to scavenge oxygen, so that might work. They're packets if finely divided iron from memory, that heat up reacting with oxygen, so I think they could do the job well
RTV can be a pain in the ass if you ever want to take the top off. Deep vacuum apparatus works fine with silicone gasket material and it easy to dismantle if you need to
@@ExtractionsAndIre iirc you made some of that super fine iron from iron oxalate that immediately oxidised in air, so you can in theory just take that as your dessicant for oxygen, as long as you keep it in heat resistant container you can hermetically close before letting the air back in
@@ExtractionsAndIre Also, they use soapy water to detect leaks in pipes carrying gasses. Maybe make some soap solution and spray some around corners to see where the bubbles form so you know what need sealing.
@@ExtractionsAndIre Ah, you've jogged my memory. One standard trick for getting very pure inert gases on demand in the semiconductor industry is to flow it through a can of finely divided copper at high temperature. It's reusable (for them) in that you just purge it with some ammonia or hydrogen when it's full.
Finely divided iron might be good because it's clearly not completely self-passivating at room temperature, and it's definitely cheap. Maybe some chlorides as a catalyst. Dunk some steel wool in NaCl solution, dry it off and throw it into the glove box? Little fan to blow atmosphere over it?
Apparently you can get little packets of oxygen scavenger. They're cheap, but hardly available in small quantities.
An interesting start to a glove-box. I have spent most of the last 40 years working in glove-boxes (fairly fancy commercial units, weighing a ton or two, with atmospheric circulators, oxygen scrubbing beds, etc.). One thing you definitely need is an outlet near the top. This will help with purging and pressure regulation. The simplest way is to run a hose (1/2" to 1" ID) into a tall bottle of oil to make a "bubbler". This gives a visual of flow rate, serves as pressure relief (so the box doesn't turn into shrapnel when the argon regulator fails) and prevents back-flow of air. A good connecting spot would be the port on the upper left of the back of the box (with the internal baffle). For hoses, I would recommend high density polyethylene (HDPE). It is not very flexible, but it has low permeability to oxygen and is very inexpensive (use a heat gun for tighter bends, or to straighten out coiled tubing). Place the bubbler well below the box, so that pulling your hands out of the gloves does not draw oil back into the box (huge mess). If you have questions, you can find my e-mail here: members.tm.net/lapointe/index.htm if you dig a little.
i imagine the duct tape seals would make an excellent overpressure failsafe
@@blockstacker5614 You're probably right, but having a compromised glove-box while you're handling pyrophorics is a less than ideal situation.
@@robertlapointe4093 Yeah, was thinking the same thing. Overpressure bubbler would be ideal, I think. Would serve as a flowrate-monitor and a pressure-release simultanously.
Care to share just what you do? Sounds like I’d love your job
@@Calyrekt Research chemist, mostly making and testing organometallic catalysts (both for small molecule synthesis and polymer synthesis). Also a fair bit of continuous reactor engineering. Off the shelf reactors need some tweaking when your feeds are pyrophoric (flammable and/or explosive on contact with air). Lot of fun, except for a few bad bosses (reason I retired a few years ago, but those BBs were fired and now I'm consulting with that company again, even get in some more glove-box time).
Just my two cents from a guy that has to do all his experiments in a sub 0.1 ppm O2 glovebox:
-you can use cheap nitrogen if you don't mind having a glovebox that doesn't go down to the ppm levels of oxygen. The only advantage of argon is that it's heavier, if you pump it in at the bottom your oxygen will float on top and get picked up by the outlet on the top. We have nitrogen boxes for stuff that doesn't require extremely low levels of oxygen, so it can be done
-working with Sodium in a glovebox is a PITA (it's great for an atmosphere check though) as pure sodium sticks to everything like superglue. Might keep that in mind before you get a sticky, really reactive metal on everything... Also, pure Alkalis from a glovebox react a lot more violent with air than the ones covered in oil: sodium is fine, but lab equipment that has traces of potassium or the heavier alks shouldn't be cleaned with water. I just put it in a fume hood and leave it there for a day
-put your light outside the box with a diffuser stuck to the window, you are going to need the extra space inside
-if you want a "real" inert atmosphere you've gotta use a slight overpressure inside the box (we use between 2 and 5mbar positive pressure, if it's lower than 2 you get problems putting your gloves on)
-a bicycle tire repair set is really handy for repairing gloves that have a leak
-more fasteners and silicon glue, we have tried building a DIY glovebox before with every edge sealed (the "airlock" consisted of a pane of acrylic glass that was screwed onto the side panel of the box, the nuts inside were covered with silicon and there was a rubber seal between the hatch and the box), still leaked quite a bit
-as others have already suggested: Use a elephant trunk (siphon, open end inside a container with oil, lower end to box) as the overpressure valve with a ball directly under the end of the pipe in the oil that will seal that pipe when you get a negtive pressure inside the pipe/box. This WILL happen if you have a slight overpressure and try to get your hands out of the box
-commercial boxes use a copper catalyst that gets oxidized by the oxygen/water in the water and regenerated with a Argon/hydrogen mixture. Might be worth a try...
-Antechamber? May work with surprisingly little effort, even a normal seal sandwiched between the metal cylinder and the door will hold a vacuum (the lower the inside pressure of the chamber the higher the force pressing it shut->good antechambers will hold a vacuum for months without problems). Also, use at least 5mm steel plates (bc of the pressure)
-don't underestimate the amount of gas a glovebox needs, we nearly go through a 50l flask of argon per week/box... A proper flush of the system is going to require at least three complete purges down to a few mbar
-a good way to reduce the amount of water inside is to put everything inside a 75°C drying oven for the night before putting it into the box, that reduces the amount of surface moisture
Awesome comment, I just learnt a few new things so thanks.
9:28
The absolute COMEDIC timing.
"Absolutely pissing out of here" *hose promptly decouples*
Love ya content m8 it's always sweet to falls sleep to your voice
You may want to make sure that it's relatively easy to unplug that hole on the bottom. I can totally foresee some point where you're going to want to remove a delightful cocktail of solution and glass shards from it, and you'll want the process of draining the box as painless as possible. Also, camera tripod mount screws are 1/4" machine screws, so it's pretty easy to construct special-purpose mounts. A mount stuck on a block of wood is a really great way to keep a camera steady for low-angle work like this.
Yeah I agree here. That's why I avoided just welding over every hole, it'll be useful to have access ports or cleaning and draining holes I think
@@ExtractionsAndIre Plus, I don't know if you are looking to work with explosives in the glovebox. If you are, I reckon you'd want the container to relieve pressure easily in case of an incident. I found this paper with a cursory google search: core.ac.uk/download/pdf/208354823.pdf
It could be really good if someone more knowledgable about gloveboxes and/or explosive handling weighed in on this.
Also, steel is magnetic last I checked. Magnetic camera mounts will be your friend.
They make plugs for testing plumbing and such that look like fancy wine bottle corks - they have a lever (or wing nut) on the top and if you flip the lever over, it squeezes the rubber so that it expands out the sides and makes a tight seal. Not sure how well it will do on sheet metal, but it's a damn sight better than duct tape.
Air yellow confirmed ?
CLOSE THE CYLINDER, not just the regulator.
The last time I was this early, the earth had an anoxic atmosphere.
Too bad it got, all rusty than
Wait... But he wouldn't need the box if he had an anoxic atmosphere
@@janronschke7525 Yeah, sounds like a terrible idea. Probably also the reason nobody comes visit us.
Great idea and thanks for giving me an excuse to get a sand blaster!
A pretty basic suggestion - consider the corrosion you'll get from HCl at some point. I'd try to keep all of the screw threads on the outside, and coat any exposed metal on the inside (silicone caulk?)
Obviously tempered glass would be better than acrylic for clarity and durability, but spendy.
I'd keep coming up with ideas to make it better (instead of using it), but you get more done because it doesn't have to be perfect - just good enough.
Good thinking about the corrosion... Yeah I wonder how well it will hold up to any acid fumes. Very badly I suppose
Most thorough tap/knock test ive ever seen, love the vids tom cant wait to see what all you get into with it
I want to breathe pure ClF3
the forbidden air tastes the sweetest
@@ExtractionsAndIre There were some idiots round here that broke into a chemical storage place to steal laughing gas but took the nitrogen dioxide instead. They both died.
you can do that but only once
@@DaftFader til I probably would've died if I ever tried to steal laughing gas cause I thought "isn't nitrogen dioxide laughing gas" and ho boy no it's not
@@Enderbro3300 ye it's a scarily easy mistake to make tbh. It's one way to stop laughing fast lol.
I always see do-it-yourself Builds on CZcams that are done so impeccably and makes me not only jealous but pretty ashamed of my failure to reach that level of ability, this late int my life 😕 but then I watch a video like this... boy does seeing all that tape provide validation
I love how hyped you are for this. A true chemist! And I'd love to give some advice but I'm so unqualified it's funny haha
Instead of foam, you could use surgical tubing. The area around the hinge is not as important after you install a purge vent at the top. Great videos
Star wars sand quotes and Extractions&Ire?
This is where the fun begins
I've seen those argon cylinders go orbital before, fuckin terrifying. Literal missiles.
Lithium metal reacts with nitrogen gas too btw
I think you could use silicone instead of hot glue, it should seal pretty well, also, shouldn't you vacuum-purge the chamber before so you don't waste that much argon while purging?
Try vacuum that "glove box" lol :D It would probably implode, and thats only if it would really be airtight sealed.
Yes please try vacuum purge, be sure to live stream it.
@@marchans-christianpiech3297 Almost guaranteed the gloves will leak massively, preventing the pressure to drop much.
Getting one step closer to finally work with uranium, and creating the Greatest Explosion
That's the dream
I recommend this type of very low pressure regulator - Equilibar LPR2 no bleed. Mount this on your box, downstream of the tank regulator. This is all the pressure you need, far lower than your tank regulator can provide stably. I've used these for years to keep high altitude plastic balloon film test boxes pressurized to ~1000Pa, which probably is about what you want anyway.
I recommend 1/4" OD tubing, polyethylene, both for your tank regulator to box regulator, and for the box reg to the box. Use "push to connect" fittings- they will save your sanity.
Awwwww yeah!
A new video.
Thanks mate, I always look forward to seeing the newest project you've gotten yourself up to.
A vacuum line would be cool.
You could work with phosgene or ketene without dying...
You could also put a HEPA filter on the end of the vacuum line, reverse the flow, and do some experiments on live bacteria & fungi.
Since your box is so small (that's what he said), producing enough CO2 to maintain an inert atmosphere would be rather trivial.
I'll bet it's a lot less expensive than a tank of argon too.
So cool can't wait to see what crazy shit ya get up to with these new goodies!
Make it crazy good! I’d love to see you assemble a really great controlled-atmosphere box :3
As a woodworker from South Carolina in the US, I feel your humidity pain my friend.
Its like the algorithm knows i had a nice glovebox accident yesturday.
I'm tormenting you
What happened?
@@theSILKROAD210 i dropped it
Things splashed
Shoes got damaged
Its almost like haiku
@@alphadog6970 i can only imagine how much of a pain in the butt the clean up would be. What were you working with?
If you wanted to build an airlock, you might be able to do that with two pieces of tupperware (possibly best the four sided ones that seal each side with a clasp) you glue to the wall, one on the inside and one on the outside, their bottoms removed. And of course a paint job!
This channels comment section has one of the best combos of entertaining as well as informative comments, that I've ever seen. I love it!
Always likes the video before watching it, love the content.
For filming on a similar level to where your work area would be in the box. Considered maybe a section of clear perspex glued to one of the walls? Maybe run some tests/fit ups not involving your box first before cutting large holes into it.
That way if your camera is outside the box, it is isolated from corrosion/fire/burning etc
you can put a cardboard box around the camera to keep the light out, then you have no glare from the perspex
I've actually used one of these exact models of sand blaster before, and yes, those gloves are very good at restricting some finer movements! xD
I can honestly say I would've never guessed "Aussie goes elbow-deep on a box to make 'er wheeze" was something I'd end up watching on CZcams, or that it would star this dudee.
I foresee a replacement pair of gloves being purchased within three uses of the box.
If anyone wants to make a cheap, disposable glovebox you can use a clear tote and silicone to seal everything. Duct tape can seal around the cutout for the door really well, kind of like how Tom sealed the holes in this video. I built one like this and it works great. I use it to deal with P2O5, lithium, sodium, potassium, cesium and NaK and it all looks just as good coming out as it did going in. I think I have maybe $30 in the build? The most expensive part was when I bought the gloves, which is up to personal preference, besides the tote itself. I also put a 1 way valve on it in case something happens and gas is produced. That allows it to vent without sucking air back in. It also let's you purge the air without having the door open, saving on argon, nitrogen or whatever you need to use. If I am doing something that may heat up or catch fire I just put a couple of metal cookie sheets in the bottom and do everything on top of those. Using a few of them provides layers of protection as opposed to just 1 layer that can heat up and burn through the plastic. It all works great, especially in a pinch and for how cheap and easy it was to build. I'll put it this way, it works well enough for me to clean up group 1 metals, NaK and P2O5 and lets me rebottle it all and keep it clean and pretty for reselling it.
Others have given good advice. I can add a little as a geochemist who works in a soft vinyl box (which is cheaper in a lab set-up than the hard shells, if you can handle a couple PPM of O2). I agree that N2 is really the better option for something home made like this. Our boxes use an N2/H2 gas mixture (~4% H2) and have palladium catalysts to eliminate O2 that gets in through the transfer chamber. That set-up involves a bit more gas regulation, catalysts, and not everything loves H2, so it is probably not great here, but to scrub residual O2, we use a bubbler with pyrogallol and KOH in it. Something like that may be useful? I recommend some molecular sieves for drying, they are rechargeable and not too costly. Also mason jars, You can store your air sensitive things in mason jars or other canning jars inside the chamber if you have to briefly vent and they will probably be okay.
A recommendation from my undergrad days for a cheap H2O/O2 sensor, cut a hole or otherwise break the vaccum on an old incandescent light bulb (the kind with a tungsten wire) and put a power strip in the box (power might be helpful for other reasons, like keeping your camera charged). How long the bulb lasts gives you a pretty good idea of how much O2 is around, in our glovebox we could usually keep it going for a few days, sometimes a week. My guess is you'll get a few hours of light out of it, but it might help you test seals and such.
I would recommend a pressure relief valve and putting one arm in at a time. A diy glove box is quite the project and I look forward to seeing the improvements you make.
I love these projects:)
It may be a good idea to learn how to weld. This will save you a lot of time and money in the future.
Plenty of great suggestions on improving the box already by others so I won't address that... But I have one for your camera. Please keep it still! I don't get motion sick but, man, your video pretty much did it for me. Otherwise, great video. Loved it.
The starting comment on how annoying the air is really resonates with me as an organic synthesis undergrad researcher living in Florida, where the humidity is almost always above 80%.
Hey, the sandblasting box likely won't hold up to a perfect vacuum, but one place I worked used to evacuate as much air as possible before back filling with argon. I don't know how sensitive your future chemistry will be, but it worked great on the very reactive titanium that was welded and heat treated in similar vacuum chambers. Albeit, the heat treat furnaces did not have gloves that extended into the oven, just the welding tanks.
It's like watching a man rediscover advanced chemistry after the world's gone to shit.
In the progress tree of the chemistry game, jumped right past a proper fume hood and went straight to a glove box.
P.S. The hardware store probably carries rolls of weather stripping. It's self-adhesive foam tape made specifically for sealing doors and windows and crap.
I try to skip things in the progress trees in games everytime so this checks out
1) Transfer hatch/Air lock, whatever you want to call it.
2) adjustable mount, be it magnetic or a flexible stand, for a camera, as well as a hole you can wire up and then seal with foam and silicone or whatever around the cables, so you don't have to run out of battery. Wrapping the cables in Teflon tape to protect the cables might be a good idea, so you don't have them degrade over time, then cause a spark that lights anything on fire or just gives you a nasty shock when making contact with the metal frame.
Get a better seal on the lid so you can have some real fun. Also, clean up the lid to make it easier to view through. Also absolutely drop the hot glue for silicone. The hole behind the cover should be easy to fix if you grind off whatever they're using to rivet it or any pressure is gonna pop that tape. Also the hole in the bottom.
I raccomend to add an air-lock because with your set up you are just increasing the pressure of the glove box and NOT removing the air (or at best you are replacing it very slowly)!
With an air lock, the ones used for fermentig, you'll always have atmospheric presure inside the box but there will be a way for the air to exit, I'll not racomend using water for the air lock as it can leak some humidity in so use something like petrol oil or something like that....
Another way to do it is to employ a vacoom pump to evacuate the chamber at first, flush it with argon and than repeat a couple of times to get the desire "interness"
Hope the tips turned out to be usefull, you are doing a grat job!
A couple of modification that i would make:
1. Change the acrylic for Glass, If you have the money to spare, Borosilicate glass, but a cheap, sacrificial, glass pane that you totally "borrowed" from a skip would work too. also, remove the hinges from the lid and just use additional latches to hold the lid down, less strain on the lid that way.
2. Use Silicone sealant wherever there is a join/gap/bolt. this will make it air tight and it wont be as reactive with solvent vapors as the Foam or the Gaffer Tape will be. (seriously, do not use strong solvents in there until you have replaced the tape with something or the glue will just melt and give way) also cover any exposed metal on the inside with Silicone or they will react with any vapors produced.
3. Add an expansion chamber to the device, they are usually used in water systems to prevent water hammer effects, but they will work just fine for Air too. this will stop the box "breathing" each time you put your gloves in and out. you can make a pretty cheap one just using a couple of balloons but then you may have a problem with corrosion and solvents again.
4. In the same vein as the expansion chamber, add an exhaust port that can go into a water/solvent trap. this way if there is a buildup of pressure for some reason or you need to do something that has a lot of vapours, it has a place to go (eg. Heating a reaction, you dont want to heat an enclosed system)
5. Add an "Aux Air" port. this can be used for vacuum or any gases that you need to introduce to a reaction (chlorine generator for example) this way you wont need to have a huge setup inside the box.
6. Switch the gloves out for better fitting, thinner ones. you only need chemical resistance in there and it will give you better dexterity when you are using it.
7. Add a light inside the box. every time you put your head over the top you change teh natural light and it will get frustrating.
8. Finally, and you have already mentioned this in the vid, make an airlock. just a smaller chamber that will use up less argon to cycle than removing the lid from the whole box. just make sure its large enough for anything you might want to add (thermo-probes, additional beakers/flasks etc)
I used to maintain the freon degreaser where I worked years ago, and the gas was heavier than the air, and it kept the air out very well without a lid. I suspect argon would do the same, but the lid will help alot in keeping the air out, once it is out. But, until it is out, you need to let it bleed out as the argon enters the box, otherwise the box gets over pressurized.
Use the candle on a wire trick to show the argon is in the box, then you can see the pressure does not need to be very high to maintain the level, and you will save gas.
awesome build
how do I personal msg you
A simple way you could make an airlock out of that hole on the right side that you covered with tape and acrylic; get some PVC pipe about the same diameter as that hole, attach a threaded fitting and threaded end cap to both ends, seal the gap around the pipe with silicon. Open the outside cap to put stuff in, close it, open the inside cap and you have your airlock. If you want to take it a step further, if all your PVC is high pressure rated, you could attach a high pressure valve to the outside end cap and vacuum purge the airlock after putting things in it.
Definitely needs more flames though.
Maybe a couple skull and crossbones? Yeah that'd be pretty sick.
I think you could lay a ballon in the box and fill it with Argon until you can see that the ballon is getting a bit smaller. Then you can turn of the gas flow, if the ballon is getting bigger after this it isnt 100% sealed and if it stays for some minutes , you know how good it stays in there.
Good video 👍👍😀👍❤️ I love seeing your content
If you didn't want to spend money on argon, you could probably get a decently inert atmosphere by (a) burning a candle or a piece of charcoal or something in the closed box until it ran out of oxygen and went out, and (b) having anhydrous calcium chloride or another drying agent in the box to suck up the water vapor from the air.
Fly me to kangaroo land and I'll help you weld up a vacuum box m8.
Duuuude ! Silicon seals !
Used to "seal" my canteen, it was the only one floating around when barracks were flooded ! XD
That what i thought of
What you really need is a sick paint job
I have plenty of ideas since I also have experienced the frustration of sealing a cabinet hermetically.
I think this is a good idea. You might want to leave that big port on the right covered loosely with tape, so that in the event of some sudden pressure increase the tape will blow off and vent the box.
You could probably get away with much cheaper nitrogen for a lot of experiments.
Gasses form solutions when mixed. When you mix salt and water, initially the salt falls to the bottom, but once dissolved, the salt is evenly distributed in solution. Gasses are the same - once mixed, heavier gasses don't settle out. The atmosphere isn't a multi-layered cocktail of pure gasses, for example.
You can always amd a dehydrated epsom salt and a hand warmer or something to keep it dry and oxygen free, keep the price low and worry less about the seal and the argon
I though for sure he'd open the box and say "So I decided to just buy a proper glove vox."
Engineer here:
- flow meter!
- vacuum line (so you can purge better with less argon)
- better bottom, maybe a bit of sheet metal or something
- fill in that dead space in the bottom
- proper gasket material (you could use silicone, RTV, weather stripping, butyl tape, or cut a solid one out of a big rubber sheet), but check chemical compatability with what you want to run
- less obnoxious gloves with some more disposable gloves covering them
Gopro, pass-through for a vacuum source or to feed another gas for reactions, adjustable led lighting inside, mains pass-through for a stirring hotplate, and some lab grade glives 😎😎😎
Amazing you weren't clumsier than usual with the gloves :]
Hey man, hope I'm not late for the party. My experience from working with physicists (I'm a chemist working in a physics work group) is that you can improve the fittings by using copper plates instead of foam. It's standard when working at pressures of around 10^(-10) mbar, so they might do a good job. Copper has the additional benefit of not leaking out any solvents. From the physicists, I also learned that you can just use soap water to check for leaks. That works hilariously well.
Regarding the inert gas, you might wanna consider if you don't want to buy a bottle of nitrogen as well. Most chemicals requiring protective atmosphere do just fine with pure and dry N2 and that might save you some money in the long run. You can pass the gas through CaCl2 if you want it nice and dry.
Hope I could give you some valuable input, don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions. Cheers from Germany mate, love your videos!
Idea I came up with is to get a vacuum pump and a setup where you can have your gas of choice, the pump, or closed. You also could use one of those holes for something to measure pressure.
There are some very nice synthetic rubber draft excluded material which I think would be better than the form. The draft excluded comes as a flattened rubber tube that squashes down well. I would also add a desiccator to the box with a lid that can be left open to dry the contents. Plumbing suppliers offer a range of gas tight fittings. One solution to regular size holes, is to fit bolts with rubber compression washers.
I doubt if anything with exposed electronics will last long in that box, so a sealed camera seems a good idea. A camera in a light proof box, mounted externally at 45 degrees to the glass, will produce a good picture without any reflections.
It would be nice to replace the see through top with Pyrex glass, maybe the sort used for oven doors, this would greatly improve the transparency.
A simple manometer would indicate if the box has positive pressure over atmosphere, not sure what the best liquid to use, but certainly an internal pressure guage would be useful as this would show how well the box is sealed. Maybe replace the gloves with long sleeve nitrile gloves, used in farming for handling pesticides, alternatively, veterinary gloves used for internal examination of large animals.. Check the light wiring is fed into the box through an IP 66, or 68 wiring gland. These are used to seal exterior mains socket boxes, they cost almost nothing.
The seams of the box metal work could be sealed with a plastic paint. Do this after all other leaks are fixed. With the paint wet, pressurise the box and drive the sealant into the gaps in the seems. Alternatively use silicon rubber sealant, my only concern is long term chemical compatibility with the materials that will be used in the box.
JB weld and gasket maker is what I would have used for this. I would also add an air lock. I would also add a pressure/ vacuum gauge to monitor the environment.
Some suggestions: please add a pressure relief valve in the event of an overpressure incident. Consider also a solid replaceable interior floor--you know something will drop or drip through the grate to where you can't reach. You could try to use a flexible plastic sleeve zip tied as airlock on that hole on the side, it *might* work for occasional transfers. A container of desiccant and a constant low flow of N2 would be cheaper than Ar as others have said; that way you can save your expensive Ar for keeping narrower containers anoxic.
Read Glovebox and thought you were taking the show on the road, this is actually much safer, which is a surprise on this channel.
(edit) you might want to try some proper gasket rubber on the lid, replacing the acrylic with a glass pane might also be a good idea in case of fire or splashes, the screws around the bottom, if those can be removed, putting some gasketing around that might also be a good idea, or a bead of silicon sealant, some extra latches on the lid wouldnt go a miss either, other than that the most important thing would a solid platform to work on and some better gloves.
And as much as it goes against other ideas on this channel, use safety glass (i.e. not the kind which turns into daggers (or micro-daggers) when it shatters due to an explosion)
Acrylic is actually safer than most types of glass. It melts instead of shattering and becoming a missile. Polycarbonate is also very strong but acrylic is plenty. I am more worried about having burs discs in case of sudden over pressure. A large rubber flap taped over a hole from the outside that gets blown off before the lid or box becomes a projectile.
A better option for sealing the box would be to use Canopy Tape.
Canopy tape can be purchased from any place that installs truck canopies. You could likely buy different widths of tape or just cut it yourself.
A bonus would be that you could unscrew the bottom, canopy tape over the screw holes, and reassemble the box.
Canopy tape is a long lived dense foam tape meant for life surviving the elements and keeping water out of truck canopies. It comes with adhesive on one side.
Keep it in mind!
An armchair idea: maybe add a pressure regulator to the box, then 1. the air doesn't need to get purged out all the leaks, but has a nice exit point at the regulator, and 2. when the cabinet is filled and slightly pressurized, argon will leak out instead of air leaking in, so the leakiness only determines argon usage and not argon purity in the box
I would suggest using silicone for seals, especially where you can clamp two flat surfaces together. May also look into making that gap around the lid much smaller using tape, even to a point of interference fit seal.
About Foams: There are so-called "open-cell" and "closed cell" foams. In open cell foam, the bubbles in the material are connected with each other through small holes, meaning gas can flow throughout the entire foam, making it mostly useless as a seal. Ideally dont use any foam at all. Silicone rubber and similar stuff is a much better option.
I feel screaming obvious solutions to engineering issues is part of the E&F fan experience
You could utilise the large hole you put the acrylic over to add a fume extraction system so you can convert it into a janky fume hood with only a few bolts.
Then the top will be toast in no time, tbh it will be the first thing that needs replacing.
This guys Hobbies are grrreat.
Great video. You're paying a lot for argon. I have a 125 cubic foot argon cylinder that I use for tig welding and the gas supply company charges me 20 USD to fill it up.
I don't pay any rent on the cylinder though, which I like, because I hate deadlines and a year passes before I know it
@@ExtractionsAndIre I also bought my cylinder. Payed 300 USD for it.
@@robbin763 ah right! Yeah I might look into doing something like that then, if the box proves to be something we use a lot
Cut a window in the back or left side panel and put a piece of acrylic as a window to shoot through. Use the same peel offs as the top to refresh when it gets a mess.
Fill a wash bottle with soapy water and spray it around any seals, if you see bubbles forming you’ve got a leak.
As others have mentioned silicon RTV is a great sealant frequently used in automotive applications so you should be able to find it pretty easily at any auto shop, you can use the RTV to seal up cracks and to make a sealing surface on the lid as it dries into a soft stretchy rubber.
Getting a flow meter is a great idea, just make sure it’s calibrated/designed for argon otherwise it won’t be accurate.
You’ll want the argon to fill from the bottom slowly and evenly, a small tube with lots of holes and something very porous on top, scotch brite or a open cell foam.
Back at the organic lab in college we used a nitrogen cylinder, and filled everything without using fume hood or any kind of glove box. We made gringnard compounds, and they were bloody nice. I love those shits.
Literally cutting side by side the potassium scaling over in and out of argon would have been great.
That upper right hole with the acrylic sheed looks like a pretty good point to add at least a small airlock when you inevitably forget something.
Also try not to get the gloves in contact with stuff like the mineral oil too often. I doubt the rubber will like that over the long term. XXL disposable gloves usually work quite well as an additional layer of clumsieness. Alternatively wipe them with some Ethanol once you're done.
A vacuum pump for better purging sounds nice but I have my doubts that the top acrylic sheet would hold up to the pressure difference.
I straight up used a large ziplock with a quickfit adapter slapped in it to the N2 when I wanted to weigh t-BuOK without visiting the glove box.
Recommendations
Use RTV silicone to seal up those seams
Mount your inlet tube high, so if your hose falls loose you won’t loose gas.
Upgrades - a GoPro (or two) - you can wirelessly stream and save, plus you could power them by usb so you keep box opening to a minimum
Yay! I love this guys vids
My two cents: Get a bigger tile, preferably one that barely fits. You need a bigger work space in there!
(And maybe fill up the lower part, under the grill, with something like clean gravel, to reduce the volume of the box. Can't tell if that would reduce argon use much.)
Cool stuff, anxious in more than one way to see your experiments in the future!
First things first you need a trio of ball valves mounted to bulkhead fittings, one for the argon, one to vent to atmosphere, and one for vacuum. Next you need a simple airlock. After that you need a second air lock style adaptation for the camera and to put it behind some glass because it'd be less reactive than acrylic. Need to also ditch the hot glue on the inside of the bottom joint and weld a proper bottom on there, just a thin piece that comes about a half inch to an inch up the sides so that you have a good seal.
looks like other people have already suggested using rtv silicone where you were using hot glue and tape. go to an automotive store and ask for gasket maker.
i'd take the bottom off, run a bead around it, and put it back on, should make an excellent seal. might not hurt to do the plexiglass thing over the holes, but run a bead of rtv around that too.
use an air compressor (or just that fish tank bubbler) to pressurize it for testing and then put soapy water on potential leaky spots, should bubble where leaks are
Star Wars reference slipped in there. Good man 👍🏻
As you have a vacuum pump you could make a connexion to evacuate it, also i work with Argon glove boxes because N2 could maybe interfer with my chemistry, however if you just need dry and water free atmosphere i suggest to go for N2, cylinders are much cheaper and as you use an overpressure you can achiever inert atmosphere by flushing the GB with N2(even better if you can cycle it vacuum-N2) it would still be much cheaper