FumeHood

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Project FumeHood
Status In progress
Contact Mux, PeterC, Thomas
Last Update 2017-12-06

For some time now, there has been some interest in performing chemistry experiments and the like at RevSpace, with PeterC having amassed a decent amount of glassware and chemicals over the past 2 years. Unfortunately, whereas we have stockpiled quite a fun assortment of chemicals, we are still missing a lot of glassware, equipment and above all a safe environment to do proper chemistry in. Project FumeHood will change this.

This project aims to provide a complete environment to safely do a very wide variety of chemistry experiments by:

  • Providing a safe fume cupboard, made from chemically inert materials, to do the experiments in
  • Providing within the fume cupboard all the amenities you expect in a proper chemistry lab: electric outlets, gas connections, water connections, vacuum takeoff and of course air extraction through a carbon filter
  • Providing dedicated, safe storage for glassware and chemicals
  • Buying, as part of the project, a wide assortment of compatible glassware
  • Buying a few necessary chemicals
  • Buying, separately, a hot plate stirrer

The fume hood will be located in the Werkplaats, right next to the exit, facing the lounge.

Board approved a total budget of €750

Spent:

  • Hornbach/CM Staal construction wood/steel/small parts €264.95
  • Gamma: Belarussia's finest spruce beams 4x 44mm*44mm*240cm €21.56
  • Polyestershoppen.nl €83.62, namely:
    • 5 m2 glass fiber twill €27.95
    • 1kg polyester resin + 100g MEK peroxide €14.94
    • 2x850g gelcoat €25.90
    • 3 mixing cups €1.44
    • 10 mixing sticks €1.49
    • 100g white pigment paste €4.95
    • Paddle roller €6.95
  • Action €25.50
    • brushes and rollers for laminating/painting
    • Undercoat paint
    • Wood filler
  • Gamma run: countersunk mounting hardware for backplate €6.18
  • Fan: Marktplaats €32
  • Glasdiscount €39,05
    • 495x1095mm 5mm thickness hardened safety glass work surface

Leaves €277.14

Allocated:

  • Polycarbonate window approx. 1150x1000mm ~50 euros (don't know where yet)
  • Filter: Somewhere in Eastern Europe, approx. €60
  • Sklep-Chemland purchase €193.15

€26.01 over budget

Fume Hood construction

Some fume hood construction details:

  • Table height: 90cm
  • Cupboard inside height: 95cm
  • Width: 110cm
  • Outside depth: 61cm
  • Compartmentalized storage underneath fume cupboard, with doors
  • Special mini-compartment with safe for extremely hazardous chemical storage
  • Inside of fume cupboard is lined with glass fiber
  • Glass fiber is reinforced with aramid fiber bands for explosion-proofness
  • Table is toughened glass, for easy cleaning and chemical resistance
  • TwoThree steel bars run along the back and top with holes tapped with M8 threads every 10cm; lab stand-style rods can screw into these
  • Polycabonate sheet single slide-up door with glove holes, on spring-loaded linear guides and with simple up/down retaining latches
  • Main skeleton out of wood
  • Connections on the inside:
    • 2x230V IP44 PVC outlets
    • 2x barbed hose connectors for water (to water mains or circulating pump)
    • 2x barbed hose connector for bunsen gas/argon
    • 2x special (?) connector for vacuum take-off/pressurized air
  • Soviet army style cylindrical carbon filter on the exhaust, followed by a 450m3/h or more fan
  • Table has a 4cm lip to contain spills.
  • Fire door. No automatic fire suppression.

Glassware

We will be ordering the following glassware, all 29/32:

  • Rods, clips and connectors for latticebuilding
  • 600mm Leibig condenser
  • 400mm Vigureaux fractional distillation column
  • 500mm Dimroth condenser
  • Thermometer stopper
  • Vacuum takeoff
  • Parallel neck adapter
  • 75 deg adapter (distillation setups, etc.)
  • Glass stoppers
  • Soxhlet extractor (+possibly joint)
  • 50, 100, 250 and 500ml roundbottom flasks
  • Keck clips
  • A 500ml drop funnel (which we'll abuse as a separatory funnel as well)
  • Waste bottles (soda lime glass) + caps
  • Reaction plates and crucibles

What are we going to do with the fume hood?

Of course, we're not building a big, expensive project like this just for the fun of construction. We do intend on doing a fair amount of cool chemistry. A nonexhaustive list of the projects thought up so far:

  • Making a lithium-ion battery (also involves project Smeltoven)
  • Gold, palladium and platinum recovery from computer components using the cyanide pathway (also involves project Smeltoven)
  • Chip decapping
  • Making sodium and/or potassium metal using the new Nurdrage method
  • Playing with project DIY solid-state stirrer
  • Anodizing aluminum (and doing it right this time!)
  • Making sodium silicide (for hydrogen production)
  • Demonstration project: glowsticks (TCPO method)
  • Demonstration project: copper salt crystal growth
  • Demonstration project: basic electrolysis
  • Demonstration project: Clock reaction
  • Making aerogels
  • Synthesizing organic and inorganic dyes

Construction

Fumehood construction1.jpg

Done:

  • Create the main fume hood frame
  • Clad the back and sides with sheet wood to square everything
  • Make the table support
  • Install extendable feet
  • Get a bunch more 44x44mm wooden beams
    • For mounting the drawer guides
    • For mounting the inner paneling
    • For supporting the roof?
  • Make a roof
  • Size the inner paneling, do not mount yet
  • Undercoat all the inner wood surfaces
  • Make the latticework
    • Make logically spaced 10mm holes in tube stock, corresponding holes in paneling
    • De-plate nuts and weld them onto the stock
    • [Partially done] Make a bunch of additional smaller holes to bolt onto paneling
    • put everything together with countersunk bolts in the wood and nuts on the steel
    • immobilize nuts (either with self-locking nuts or locking fluid)
  • Create a steel support plate for the fluid connections
  • Undercoat all the exposed wood
  • Install a lip at the front of the table
  • Line the inside of the fume hood with polyester resin-impregnated glass fiber. This needs to be done in sections, laying the fume hood flat on whatever side is being worked on, otherwise we're going to get droop
  • trim off any protruding glass fiber bits, repair bad bits
  • very accurately record the positions of all the holes, we won't be able to see them through the gelcoat!
  • gelcoat all the glass fibered surfaces. Don't forget the pigment paste!

Still to do:

  • drill out all the holes previously covered
  • Make a decision on how many drawers we want, how large, if we want cabinets
  • Make mounting holes for the electric outlets
  • Install the fluid connections
  • Install the door
  • Build and install drawers
  • Decide on what size latticework we want and cut threads on sized pieces of stainless steel
  • Install the extraction adapter, filter, ventilator
  • Decide on how to decorate the outside