JJay
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Glass Wool
I am in need of some glass wool for various purposes. I've seen lab grade glass wool for sale a few times, but the price seemed outrageous. I can
cheaply and conveniently purchase fiberglass at a home improvement store... is there any reason I can't just use fiberglass as glass wool...?
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Deathunter88
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Quote: Originally posted by JJay  | | I am in need of some glass wool for various purposes. I've seen lab grade glass wool for sale a few times, but the price seemed outrageous. I can
cheaply and conveniently purchase fiberglass at a home improvement store... is there any reason I can't just use fiberglass as glass wool...?
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Lab grade glass wool is expensive because they are washed multiple times with mineral acids to remove impurities. Fiberglass should work just as well
in most applications.
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JJay
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Interesting... one thing I would use it for is microscale filtration with a pipette or syringe. Perhaps I should wash it in acid first....
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UC235
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Fiberglass insulation at the hardware store is spun recycled glass (probably) chopped and sprayed with adhesive and dye before rolling into a
convenient shape. Lab quality glass wool is a fluffy relatively long-stranded clean white material made from borosilicate glass and nothing else. I
hate working with it. It doesn't compress well so you need to ball up a fairly large amount and jam it in place.
Plain old cotton balls work for most things that aren't strong acid or bases or require lengthy exposure. The texture is also much better.
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JJay
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I have been using polyester polyfill, but I'll probably switch to cotton if I have to put through any solvents or extreme pH mixtures.
[Edited on 8-11-2015 by JJay]
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S.C. Wack
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Insulation is made with a formaldehyde resin binder. Fiber sold for mixing with Bondo or gypsum/PVA should be cleaner. I don't think that the original
glass (OG) wool made by Owens-Corning (US2121802) that was the standard for lab or insulation usage was made with organics at all, or is made by
anyone these days. The original Pyrex wool was bulky, barely-more-than-random thin loose rolled sheets, rather than the rope Corning sells now, which
is not made by them any more; looking at the MSDS, it's also contaminated with organics, in a different way than the insulation and can presumably be
washed.
[Edited on 8-11-2015 by S.C. Wack]
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Artemus Gordon
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You can buy 50g of laboratory glass wool for $8.49 from Elemental Scientific.
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