FumeHood

Project FumeHood
Status	In progress
Contact	Mux, PeterC, Thomas
Last Update	2017-11-22

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

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

Still to do:

• 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!
• 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