I appreciate your concern. I will be purchasing respirators soon, but we do have adequate ventilation because my lab is in a garage bay that used to be a paint booth and we have a 3ft exhaust fan that we run constantly when we are working. We take safety very seriously when working with hexane as I know how volatile it is as a solvent.
Currently I have a cheapo HF rotary vane vac that I have been using for my rotovap. After reading the replies here it seems I should be using a diaphragm vac as I have been having to change the oil in my vac after every run since it is pulling in hexane. As for routing, I planned on getting 2 barbed fittings for my reactor lid that would allow me to connect my vac to one port and have another line going down to my solvent solution.
The reason I donāt do this is because it takes forever to get my reactor up to temp with my heating loop, and mixing the CBD into the solvent would require shoving a kilo of isolate through a 24/40 fitting, or completely disassembling the adgitator and removing the lid. Iād much rather use vac to suck up my solution than have to tear down my reactor before every use. Hope that makes sense
Get on Amazon and order a cheap Teflon diaphragm pump. The happy buy pumps work fine and are under $500. Best way to move Hexane around that Iāve found. Be sure to use anti static hose.
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using a cold trap with a rotary vane pump isnāt optional btw
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Pictures of your reactor please. Iām concerned.
As @roiplek said cold trap isnāt optional when pulling explosive solvent with an electric rotary vane. And if itās not vented to the exterior of your workspace via frictionless duct and spark resistant ventilationā¦well then you sir have a ticking time bomb
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Youāre right. I shouldāve been using one all along. I will be making a list of things I need to be running safer. Cold trap, respirators, and a new vac pump are at the top of the list. As for a picture of my reactor, I am running the 5L from USALAB. Here is a picture of my lab setup. Sorry itās not a good pictire. Not pictured is the exhaust fan up above. It may or may not be ex proof as it used to be a paint booth, but it does a great job of moving the air out of the bay rather quickly.
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You should stack your cold traps. They work more efficiently stacked because of the way the vapor travels. Just a thought
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Are you referring to the cold traps on my SPD or for my reactor? I am not sure what you mean. Also, does anyone have a line on a stainless cold trap that wonāt break the bank? Iām seeing about 1k for stainless cold trap from usalab or bvv. Not sure if there are better deals out there.
@Killa12345 had them for like 300 bucks or something. Yes the SPD, you want your second cold trap hooked up to the first by the bottom port. Stacked.
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Okay, thatās what I was thinking you meant, took a sec to visualize. Iāll definitely run it that way next time. Oh yeah, why didnāt I think of killa!
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im outta stock on stainless traps for another week or 2. Tracking shows the sea container here on 8/1, but it still needs to move threw customs and get delieveredā¦ should be back in stock super soon though
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Okay, I probably wonāt be doing another run before then, so Iāll just wait until you got em in. If you wouldnāt mind to shoot me a message when you got em, Iāll place an order. Also wanna talk to you about setting up a little closed loop as well.
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i will throw you on the dry erase board right this secondā¦thanks alwaysā¦
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A peristaltic pump with hexane compatible tubing would be your best choice for this situation. I donāt have any brands in mind to recommend for you. Since the pump just squeezes some tubing to do itās work it just comes down to your choice of tubing.
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See, I thought about doing that because I am a fan of peristaltic pumps, but I think Iām gonna use vac to move my solvent around. Gives me a reason to invest in a skookum vac!
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Roiplek any other oil less vacuum pumps you recommend that can get that low but not as expensive. Max Ā£1500 - Ā£3000 Cheers
none sadly. once you get below 0.6mbar, wallet go brrrrrr
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Buy a used pump
Yeah been looking for used pumps but their hard to find in the UK especially one that performs like that vacuubrand, Iām always on the lookout for a oil less dry/chemical resistant pump that pumps down past 0.1 torr