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subsecret
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Boiling Stones?
Pretty short question:
What things are best for use as boiling stones?
Fear is what you get when caution wasn't enough.
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Mailinmypocket
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Buy a cheap white porcelain mug or plate at a dollar store, smash it to hell in a clean way to avoid contaminating it with dust etc. Broken lab glass
works well also. Boiling stones are best but they are not always cheap.
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Endimion17
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If you choose porcelain, remember that you can only use it once, or only for one purpose, as it has pores.
It's best to have a box for broken glass tubes. I never throw anything except it's completely useless. Broken laboratory glassware can be quite
useful.
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smaerd
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Or buy a jar of boiling stones for 10 dollars that will last probably a life-time.
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Pyro
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also activated charcoal or sand will work!
all above information is intellectual property of Pyro.  |
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violet sin
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kinda helpful but not fully on track here. depending on what you are boiling down some things can be used as nucleation sites for bubbles to stop
bumping. while concentrating a CuSO4 solution from sulfuric acid w/ copper electrodes. I used copper wire ~10" long. at one end I wrapped some fine
wire in a bunch and held in place by a medium gauge wire, all copper. basically it looked like a funky broom. but it was quick to make, cheap,
durable and easily replaceable. although the bumping didn't stop completely, it enabled me to concentrate back to strong H2SO4 and crystallize much
of the copper sulfate w/o any glass breaking.
this idea doesn't work for hotplates w/ mag stirrers. just a make-shift fix for a problem I had while messing around and getting back into chem.
like working with mason jar type chemistry off youtube.
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confused
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i have at one point used calcium sulfate chips as boiling stones...it all depends on what you're reacting.
if youre using broken glassware, i reccomend sanding it first to scratch it up, increasing the nucleation sites for bubbles to from. (being careful
not to cut yourself while doing so)
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Fantasma4500
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charcoal??
my logic tells me you would need something with VERY VERY low density for that to work (:
not sure if liquid helium would be low enough??
to my ''luck'' my 250 mL flask just decided to start cracking in the bottom, no HNO3 or acetone destillation.. luckily it has some thick glass parts
which will surely work well for boiling chips which is also often a problem
smarter every day (:
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Pyro
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well, activated charcoal, the granules sold for fish tank filters
all above information is intellectual property of Pyro. |
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Oscilllator
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I use coke (the roasted coal kind) for my boiling chips, after having numerous bad experiences with broken glass as boiling chips. It is extremely
porous carbon, and as such is pretty much immune against everything. The only problem is small bits of the coke break off, and the boiling chips have
a tendency to float round in the substance you are boiling.
Other than that, they cost 60c/kg and have a high enough surface area that I have never had any problems with bumping while using them. Highly
recommended!
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The_Davster
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broken clay flowerpots
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Cave_Johnson
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Usually I use silica gel beads. They provide pretty good anti-bumping insurance (maybe not as good as broken glass) without being sharp or prone to
disintegration, and they're big enough to be easily removable from a distillation mixture or whatever. I reuse them since they're not extremely
porous. Probably the worst part is getting packs large enough to be useful, unless buying them is an option, in which case it might be better just to
buy real boiling chips in the first place.
We're done here.
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testimento
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I have used common silica sand (beach sand) that is purified prior adding. Sand consists primarily of silicon dioxide, same stuff as glass, so there
will be no compatibility issues with all chemicals that can go with glass. I have used it for ether synthesis, purifying acetone, toluene, DMSO and
several other reactions. Few spoonfuls are quite enough for 5L flasks to create nice steady curtain of bubbles, so the ease of getting a few buckets
of it I just throw away the residue sand after use.
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subsecret
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I've heard not to use sand as it can scratch the glass. It would really be a pain if you got it wedged into a ground glass joint without noticing.
Fear is what you get when caution wasn't enough.
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Blue Matter
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This thread is so over complicated either use broken boro silicate glass if you have it or buy actual boiling chips there like 5-15 dollars.
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sonogashira
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Pumice. Glass is useless for heavily-bumping solvents.
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subsecret
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I made some boiling stones from plaster of Paris. I'm not sure how inert is is, probably not very inert. These stones will slowly absorb water from
solutions, so begin boiling soon after adding them to a solution.
Fear is what you get when caution wasn't enough.
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subsecret
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UPDATE:
These boiling stones are reactive to hydrochloric acid and some of its salts.
Is there a place to find a reactivity series for inorganic polyatomic ions?
[Edited on 28-8-2013 by Awesomeness]
Fear is what you get when caution wasn't enough.
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Hexavalent
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Quote: Originally posted by Cave_Johnson  | | Probably the worst part is getting packs large enough to be useful, unless buying them is an option, in which case it might be better just to buy real
boiling chips in the first place. |
What about the silica-gel based cat litters?
"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill
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confused
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you can also buy silica gel in photography stores, they use it as a desiccant
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subsecret
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Will silica scratch borosilicate glass? I've heard that sand will...
Fear is what you get when caution wasn't enough.
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IrC
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Too many questions easily answered you keep asking, not just in this thread. Do you ever actually bother to search before asking others?
From Google search terms : hardness silica, hardness borosilicate glass
http://www.reade.com/Particle_Briefings/mohs_hardness_abrasi...
http://www.tedpella.com/company_html/hardness.htm
http://www.roymech.co.uk/Useful_Tables/Matter/Glass.html
http://www.skylinecomponents.com/Borosilicate
I should add you can think I'm being rude no matter to me. We all have jobs, lives, hobbies. Meaning little time to work for free for others who do
not wish to work for themselves. Most of us search long and hard before bothering to ask others. There is an etiquette here which has existed many
years. Most try hard to not appear as if we would rather get someone else to work for us rather than do it ourselves. I can see maybe your asking an
innocent question yet when recurring patterns become clear across multiple threads it simply gets annoying. A true scientist spends long hours in
study. So it makes having to also study for others very unappealing.
[Edited on 8-28-2013 by IrC]
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
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bfesser
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| Quote: Originally posted by IrC | | Too many questions easily answered you keep asking, not just in this thread. Do you ever actually bother to search before asking others?
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I second this. Frustratingly, such behavior is not unique to this thread/user.
Also, just invest in some goddamned PTFE boiling chips, people! I bought a full jar (one pound, if I recall correctly) from eBay for less than 20 USD
(again, IIRC), and have yet to make a dent in it after years of use. They're not perfect for everything, but they're damned close.
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Varmint
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The ultimate boiling chip for most purposes is ceramic tumbling media.
Rinse them off, blow with compressed air if you have it, or just do a boil for the fun of it to clean them up.
Obviously if your liquor eats ceramic, these become non-ideal, for everything else, the number of nucleation sites is phenominal, super-heating ENDS
with these as boiling chips.
Also, if not inherently obvious, these are porous, so you want to keep individual chips doing similar work. That is to say pay attention, you don't
want to drop chips from a previous caustic boil into an acid boil without contemplating the possible side effects.
5lb bottle = $14.99 + Tax (US)
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-lbs-medium-ceramic-abrasive-p...
DAS
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bfesser
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chemware-D1069103-Boiling-Stones-Grams/dp/B002TG3W1M/ref=sr_1_1" target="_blank">Chemware D1069103 PTFE Boiling
Stones, 450 Grams</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" />
Re-using boiling chips is an all around bad idea.
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