FumeHood

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

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