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Syntheses of air and moisture sensitive materials
by Adam Pikul
Lanthanide and actinide elements, commonly used in our research, are air and moisture sensitive materials, which must be stored in oxygen- and moisture-free atmosphere. Therefore, we perform almost all chemical syntheses in special containers, called glove boxes, which are designed to contain a very high purity inert atmosphere, e.g. noble gas (mostly argon). In our laboratory we use a customized mBraun LabMaster MB200B glove-box system.
The gas in the glove boxes is circulating through a series of filters removing (absorbing) water and oxygen from the gas, so the containment of O2 and H2O in the boxes is lower than 0.1 ppm! In order to prevent an inflow of air through any microscopic leaks, the inert atmosphere of the boxes is kept at slightly higher pressure than the surrounding air.
Two or more special gloves are connected to one or more transparent walls of the box in order to allow to manipulate objects inside the box. The gloves are made of butyl, which is elastic material of very high water vapor and gas impermeability, and very resistant to solvents, concentrated oxidizing acids and concentrated alkalies and salts. Two antechambers are used to put objects in (or out) the boxes.
