Following my last message a number of you e-mailled me directly with
suggestions and a couple of people asked me to forward any info. Here is
(sadly) what I found...

Fluorochem in the UK (fax +44 1457 869360) do supply BrF5 and can ship it.
However the cost quoted to me was 420 GBP (~$AU 900, ~$US 700) per 50 g
(which isn't much reagent).

The reason that I was after clean BrF5 was that we tried to run our
CO2-based laser line using ClF3 (which works well in our conventional line)
but ran into all sorts of problems with high non condensibles -
particularily a fraction of gas that we could convert with our C rod but
which refused to freeze down in the cold finger. The volume of this gas
increased with the volume of ClF3 in the sample chamber, but we could never
reduce the ClF3 to levels where we got satisfactory ablation without seeing
this problem. A Hg pump and a KBr trap were both tried (between the sample
chamber and the C rod) without success. I guess without an easy swap of
reagent, I should see if I can cure the problems with the laser line - any
comments (particularily from users who have seen similar problems or are
running CO2-ClF3 combinations) would be more than welcome.

Cheers

Ian


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Ian Cartwright
Department of Earth Sciences
Monash University
Clayton, Vic 3168
AUSTRALIA

Tel  +61 (0) 3 9905 4887 / 4879
Fax  +61 (0) 3 9905 4903
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://artemis.earth.monash.edu.au/Department/ian_cartwright.html

May your peak tops be flat, may your isotopes be stable

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