nikotyna1939
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Chemistry apparatus made out of pure alumina or pure zirconia ceramic material ?
Is it feasible to use chemistry apparatus made out of pure alumina or pure zirconia ceramic material for refluxing and distilling reagents containing
all kinds of commonly found mineral and organic acids,bases,salts expect for fluorine containing compounds ?
P.S. I wanted to use pure alumina or pure zirconia ceramic material because its has higher melting point than fused silica
[Edited on 20-3-2025 by nikotyna1939]
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Texium
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Sure, just get it from wherever you buy your pure platinum spatulas and solid diamond mortar and pestles.
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imidazole
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well, there are alumina ceramic crucibles and tubes, while it would be astronomically expensive for alumina glass, it looks like if you bought some,
you might be able to drill it or otherwise shape it to an apparatus or retort of some kind.
Of course, you'd want the kind that are fused strongly enough to withstand acid.
To memory, dead burnt magnesium is pretty much unreactive to concentrated sulfuric acid despite being made of magnesium oxide, because it's
essentially a rock.
Porcelain Clay was historically used for many lab apparatuses, you could likely do some things using that, and if you can bake it in a kiln. I'm sure
you could make anything you could imagine, but make sure to slowly heat it, because nothing is immune to thermal expansion.
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Admagistr
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If you have enough money, you can outsource its production to a professional company. But I failed when I wanted to have a custom-made leucosaphir
crucible made. They only sold me a sapphire tube they found in stock that had a bottom, I cut the crucible off and was left with the tube. It was very
expensive...It's almost transparent, it's almost semiconductor purity, it was made by a modified Stepanov method. I had the company anneal it, at a
very high temperature in the air, to remove traces of molybdenum or tungsten, it was an extra charge. I bought it from Crytur. Although it looks like
glass, it's actually a leucosapphire crystal that's grown like a tube with a flat bottom. Al2O3 does not form glass! Even the Verneuli method pears
are not ruby or sapphire glass, but are in fact always corundum crystals.
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Rainwater
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I have attempted many times to make a pure aluminum oxide crusable.
The closest i got to a working unit was 95% by weight sentered powdered alumina,
5% by weight oven dried aluminum hydroxide.
Material was ground to a 250 mesh and mixed in a ball mill for a few hours.
Then negative mold pressed into shape with a 20 ton bottle jack and fired to a cone
14 for about 20 hours.
Still cracked when handling gently
[Edited on 21-3-2025 by Rainwater]
"You can't do that" - challenge accepted
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Dr.Bob
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Sounds like me when I wanted a pair of glasses made of Cree's SiC, like Moisonitte, which would not scratch easily. Plus it is very high index of
refraction, so they could be quite thin. I could likely get them for $1million or so... I used to have a quartz chamber for TLC that was UV
transparent for watching TLCs run, but a labmate just broke it. Even fused quartz is not very good with being dropped on the floor.
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Rainwater
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I checked my notes and used a
27 degree(f) rise rate
20 hour soak time at 3100(f)
100 degree(f) cooling rate
I tried a lot of combinations of oven parameters and mixture ratios and concluded
that those effects where negligible, the most dominant effect was the molding
pressure. 150 tons should produce a green part stronger than my best fired part.
Good luck, if you get it diy, please share
"You can't do that" - challenge accepted
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nikotyna1939
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Your experience on using either Alumina or Zirconia ceramic material
Please I just want wanted to know do you ever use either Alumina or Zirconia ceramic material for the process that I mentioned 
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Rainwater
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Alumina
Iridium + potassium pyrosulfate + 500c for 24 hours
Severely corroded the crusable and contaminated productn easy to isolate
NaCl + e- + 900c for 200 hours
Pitting around Cl2 exaust.
"You can't do that" - challenge accepted
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bnull
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| Quote: | | Is it feasible to use chemistry apparatus made out of pure alumina or pure zirconia ceramic material for refluxing and distilling reagents containing
all kinds of commonly found mineral and organic acids,bases,salts expect for fluorine containing compounds ? |
The short answer is no, unless you found some person or company that makes pure alumina or zirconia retorts.
Round bottom flasks and condensers (except an air condenser and maybe a Liebig) cannot be made from pure alumina or zirconia.
- Since the commercial processes involve high pressures, you can't make hollow complex forms such as a spherical shell attached to a
tube (which is the basic shape of a round bottom flask). And you can't also do it yourself in your backyard. Plates are OK, crucibles are OK, hollow
tubes maybe, but the other forms certainly not;
- The melting points are too high (alumina melts at 2070 °C, zirconia around 2715 °C) and they're not easy to work with in the liquid state.
Glass softens, they do not;
- These materials don't have a glass transition, they crystalize on cooling. A group of Japanese researchers made an alumina glass some years ago;
they used tantalum oxide to prevent crystallization of alumina, and here's the catch: they made millimeter-sized glass prills by suspending a mixture
of alumina and tantalum oxide on a stream of oxygen and fusing it with lasers. This is the only instance of an alumina glass (not the same as
aluminosilicate glass, which is a glass with some 10% alumina) that I know of;
- These materials degrade, as @Rainwater pointed out;
- Assuming you find some person or company that does indeed have the expertise and facilities to work with complex shapes on pure alumina or
zirconia and accepts commissions from private individuals, it would be tremendously expensive. The money you would spend with such thing is worth a
lifetime supply of distillation setups. If you break a borosilicate or fused silica piece, it's not the end of the world and a new one won't bankrupt
you. Now try breaking your fancy alumina condenser;
- There are other issues, such as thermal expansion, strain, joints, weight and thickness of the apparatus walls, but I believe the ones above are
the most important.
| Quote: | | I just want wanted to know do you ever use either Alumina or Zirconia ceramic material for the process that I mentioned |
Take a look at what some shops sell; for example*, Hanker Scientific, AntsLAB, China Alumina Ceramics, Inc., International Ceramics Engineering, Anderman Industrial Ceramics. Do you see anything other than crucibles, tubes, boats, mortar and pestle, or plates? Probably not. They are used
for fusions, sublimation, combustion, but not reflux and distillation, which are the processes you mentioned.
You have stainless steel, glass, and fused silica to choose from.
*: I'm not affiliated with any of them, they just came up when searching "alumina labware" on Google.
But, sure, I won't complain if they send me a mortar and pestle or something. 
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nikotyna1939
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The main application of the Alumina and Zircon ceramic apparatus
I wanted to use Alumina and Zircon ceramic apparatus mainly for
1. distilling used electroplating solution
2. distilling and refluxing organohalogens compounds
3. distilling and refluxing mineral acid containing compounds
4. distilling and refluxing organic acids
5. pyrolysis of waste PVC and other halogen containing plastics
6. crucible for molten salts and alkali metal hydroxides
7. removing Cadmium from batteries by boiling and distilling the Cadmium either compound or metal
8. production of elemental Phosphorus from Phosphoric acid
9. multipurpose vessel for molten metal crucible and all the process that I mentioned above
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bnull
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Could you please post some photos of the apparatus? If we know what and how it is, I'm absolutely sure we can tell what can be done with it.
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Mateo_swe
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I bought an alumina tube some time ago when i had plans to maybe make a tube furnace.
I never did finalize it but i still have the alumina tube.
So more simple shapes like tubes can be bought from alumina, i think cruzables too and its not super expensive.
Just look in ebay and similar, many things like this from china.
But if you want it from a western manufacturer the prizes go up drasticly.
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nikotyna1939
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The main reason to distill used electroplating solution
I planned to distill used nickel electroplating solution because in my country they dispose the waste by throwing it into the river or into nearby
sea.
[Edited on 31-3-2025 by nikotyna1939]
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nikotyna1939
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white ceramic form like crucible
I'm planning to use white alumina or zirconia ceramic form like they use in crucible
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nikotyna1939
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Reason of using Alumina or zirconia
I wanted use either Alumina or zirconia because it has high melting and boiling point
and it doesn't sublimate at high temperature and in normal atmosphere
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bnull
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What is in the nickel electroplating solution?
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nikotyna1939
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Content of nickel electroplating solution
Possibly they're using mainly nickel sulfate as the salt and minor amount of sodium hypophosphite
[Edited on 31-3-2025 by nikotyna1939]
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