Andrew Corradini wrote:
> AMEN (and pass the H2SO4) to this thread!
>
> I'm a recovering Marketing executive in Silicon Valley, now a garage Mad
> Scientist, building a catalytic reactor in my garage, much to my wife's
> chagrin. ;-)
>
> A) There are very few helpful publications. The Journal of Chemical
> Education, which one writer mentioned, is TERRIFIC. I have electronic
> access to it, through a buddy who's a chem prof at Stanford, and have
> copies of many articles from it -- how to build your own ______ out of
> stuff you can buy at Home Depot. There's also a physics journal - I
forget
> the name at the moment, but it's focused on practical lab stuff. Found a
> nice design for a power supply there.
>
> Also, the old "Amateur Scientist" column from Scientific American is
> great. Available on CD-ROM, or microfilm at your local library. More on
> that in a second.
>
> B) Commercial lab equipment is SICK expensive. I used to write lab info
> systems for a biotech company (my old boss was on Jon Stewart last
night,
> discussing cow clones!), which needed benchtop grinders to grind
> desiccated plant samples for DNA analysis. A few thousand US$ apiece,
and
> they had to be cleaned after every use, and we did about a million
samples
> a year -- quite a bottleneck. Found out that the Krups coffee grinder
> actually did a better job, was easier to clean, and cost $20. We bought
> like 14 of them.
>
> I've started blowing some simple glassware with a hardware-store propane
> torch and Pyrex tubing I get for about $7 per meter at a local
> chemistry-hobbyist supply shop (one of the last, I suspect!) I'm
building
> a gas chromatograph (per 2 articles in SciAm columns from the 60s), out
of
> cement-board from Home Depot, Tide detergent, an old toaster oven from
> Goodwill, a big cork from my wife's bath-crystals, 12-ga copper wire
left
> over from a light-switch replacement, and a Coleman lantern replacement
> glass cylinder from Ace. My data collector/plotter is an eBay'd Texas
> Instruments "CBL" with photodetector ($29.30) and a cable to my laptop.
>
> For a lab scale, and catalyst sup****t (stainless-steel fine-mesh screens
-
> about $130 for a 5-pack at Cole-Parmer) -- I visited my friendly
> neighborhood head shop....errr.... "tobacco accessory store". $27 for a
> digital scale that's good down to +/- 0.01g, and $2-3 for 10 screens.
> (They also stock lots of small bits of pyrex tubing for
> bong....errr... "tobacco pipe" .... construction, some with ground glass
> fittings! Gotta love the counterculture entrepreneurial ethic!)
>
> My biggest expense so far is the tank of nitrogen and the regulator for
it
> -- I'm not going to skimp on 2200-psi equipment. ;-) Anything stainless
> steel is also pricey -- but surplus places are GREAT.
>
> C) One thing I'd LOVE is a pointer to a book, resource, etc., on
> constructing lab setups. I've read about 200+ journal articles with "so
we
> built a reactor out of 316 stainless..." ...yadda yadda, as if that's
> obvious knowledge -- only, after searching through course descriptions
at
> MIT, Caltech, etc, and many books -- I've yet to find something like
> "Practical Laboratory Chemical Engineering Benchtop System Design and
> Fabrication".
>
> Best I've found thus far is a paper from some guys at Caltech. (Google
> "Caltech", "JP-10", and "rotameter" and you'll get the exact paper, PDF,
> as the only hit. You're welcome! ;-) It details the entire setup, down
to
> the part numbers, schematic, pictures, etc., of their lab device.
>
> Also, old books (e.g., The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, or
> something like that, which I'm happy to send anyone in .PDF) and
magazines
> (see blog.modernmechanix.com, click on chemistry), are huge helps.
>
> Finally, check out makezine.com and instructables.com (search for
"lathe"
> on the latter to see another of my projects). Mostly not chemistry, but
> potentially hugely helpful community.
>
> Any follow-up WELCOMED -- corradini (then the "at" sign, then Yahoo,
then
> a period, then "com".
>
> On Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:27:01 +0000, vjp2.at wrote:
>
>> Pardon if I'm wrong, but, methinks, We should cross post to the sci edu
group.
>>
>> *+- Another thought: what's the chem lab found in every home? The
KITCHEN. In
>> *+-plant visits course, we went to the old General Foods lab in
Tarrytown, which
>> *+-used to hire a few of our grads. This is no small thought. My dad's
older
>> *+-brother is considered to have played a major role in the rise of
modern Greek
>> *+-science by introducing a rather simple teaching technique for
>> *+-then-highly-rural students: the school garden.
>>
>> *+- The other thing is MICROFLUIDICS is changing a lot. You can have
safer
>> *+-school labs using smaller quanities. When we went to big pharma in
my plant
>> *+-visits course, there was this huge lab that dropped many antiobiotic
>> *+-candidates on a matrix of many bacteria. Well, today the entire
thing (high
>> *+-throughput screening) is the size of my late mom's original
Cuisinart.
>> *+-There's a blood test device (the size of a 1970s home computer) you
find in
>> *+-every chemotherapy clinic which costs about a hundred grand.
>>
>> *+- There is a big popular PHOBIA of chem and bio. We need to
overcome it in
>> *+-order to keep our competitive edge. But also, there is an OLIGOPSONY
of a lot
>> *+-of the gadetry which keeps it expensive. I was working with some
"energy"
>> *+-consultants and we got a thirty buck (kill-o-watt, methinks it's
called)
>> *+-meter you can measure how much every gadget spends in electricity.
Then we
>> *+-tried to get a similar Doppler meter for HVAC and plumbing and found
it cost
>> *+-two grand refurb. The blood test device above is cost effective
enough to put
>> *+-in a lot of group practices, yet they still send out to labs, at
much higher
>> *+-per-patient cost. We need to encourgae more of a garage mentality in
>> *+-chem/bio, but the bloody media is our biggest enemy. Folks have no
idea how
>> *+-much they would save in med costs if we had more such "garages".
>>
>> *+- Sciplus.com is a cool source for lab supplies.
>> *+-(I use "guerrilla" management techniques for startups.)
>>
>> *+-You hit on a serious problem. My NSPE chapter is trying to set up a
program
>> *+-for HS students. Even the software (CAD, CFD, Sim) is overpriced.
There is a
>> *+-bit of Freeware (octave.org, sourceforge.net, bloodshed.net,
>> *+-http://www-rocq.inria.fr/OpenFEM)
out there, though. I would try to
stick
>> *+-with stuff that works inside a MatLab clone. (Despite Codd&Date's
attempts
>> *+-on referential integrity two decades ago, the major cost of using
computers
>> *+-is still transfering data between programs) I've heard it claimed no
one does
>> *+-pilot plants any more, thanks to simulation, but someone answered,
no one
>> *+-builds new refineries in the states anyways. 5dollarsoftware.com
has an EE
>> *+-CD with an early free trial version of IntelliCAD, compat w AutoCAD
2000.
>> *+-COADE CADWorx it's not, though.
>>
>> - = -
>> Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus,
BioStrategist
>> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
>> ---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully
disclaimed.}---
>> [Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive
guards]
>> [Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Remorse begets zeal] [Windows is for
Bimbos]
>
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