Argon box line for inert sample preparation

Aarhus University has bought a large lab-scale glovebox system with two plasma burners for sealing quartz tubes and two large volume vacuum furnaces for high temperature synthesis. Our strict requirements for safety during operation and for purity of the argon atmosphere means that only Imatex S.A. has the expertise and sufficient experience to supply a safe system.

The Department of Chemistry at Aarhus University intents to buy a lab-scale system for sample preparation and synthesis under inert conditions in an argon atmosphere. The system will consist of four connected gloveboxes with a central argon purification system and particle remover. Two gloveboxes are for sample preparation and storage and will contain two argon plasma burners for sealing quartz ampules etc. The remaining two gloveboxes will each be equipped with a high temperature vacuum furnace for synthesis. Safe operation and an extremely pure atmosphere are of utmost importance and it is thus required that the whole setup is connected to a centralized argon purification and interlock systems.

The Department of Chemistry have many activities within inorganic materials science that require an extremely clean and inert environment. Of special importance are semiconductors and topologically non-trivial materials where surface oxidation or contamination can be extremely detrimental to the desired properties of the materials. These materials must be handled and stored in a completely inert environment during preparation, synthesis, post-processing, and characterization.

Our standard synthesis route consists of sealing appropriate precursors in clean half-inch quartz tubes and reacting them at high temperatures. This requires gloveboxes with argon atmosphere, argon plasma torches for sealing the ampules with either argon or vacuum inside, and a high temperature furnaces for the reaction. The ampules will be placed in an upright position to reduce the surface area of the melted reactants and several tubes will be placed in a furnace simultaneously to make large series of materials with completely identical thermal histories. This requires box furnaces to accommodate several tubes at a time. The furnaces will also be used for cleaning the quartz tubes and must be able to operate with a vacuum at high temperature in order to completely remove any adsorbed water before loading them with the precursors.

As many materials of interest contain elements with high vapor pressure, the furnace must both be able to reach to the desired temperature and cool to room temperature quickly to minimize evaporation of these elements. Temperatures up to 1200°C are required and must be reached in less than one hour, and from there cool below 200°C in less than 2 hours. This must be possible to do in a vacuum for cleaning quartz tubes but argon exchange may be used for cooling.

As operating large volume vacuum furnaces and plasma torches inside an enclosed glovebox can lead to dangerous situations, we require a centralized safety and interlock system that adequately handles individual as well as simultaneous operation of the torches and furnaces. As the system will be a foundation for many research areas it will have a large user base consisting of both inexperienced students and staff researchers, and the safety system must thus not rely on user experience. Additionally, all users of the system must be clearly notified when a dangerous situation arises in one area of the system.

Due to our requirements for the individual components and the need for a combined system, we conclude that only Imatex S.A. has the expertise and sufficient experience to supply this system based on many years of experience supplying similar systems to the lamp industry.

Argon box line for inert sample preparation

Please contact Aarhus University, if you have a comment about this notice - udbud@au.dk

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