D. Hodell,

I have had several such sad experiences as yours. In all cases, we ended up
cleaning the **"whole"** vacuum system with trichloroethane or equivalent
solvent, followed by acetone,or some similar organic solvent. One
acquaintance used diethyl ether instead of acetone; however, I highly
recommend against the use of ether(The fire hazard and explosive hazard
hardly justify its use).

Glen Martin, Water Sciences Laboratory, School of Natural Resource Sciences,
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0844\

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At 10:07 AM 11/8/97 -0500, you wrote:
>I am seeking advice on cleaning solvents and procedures to remove diffusion
>pump oil (Santovac 5) from the pipework of a mass spectrometer
>(VG/Micromass PRISM SeriesI).    The chilled water line that cools the
>Diffstaks broke and the thermal trip failed to turn the diffusion pump
>heaters off, so the Diffstaks remained hot for 8 hours with no circulation
>of cooling water.  After removing both the source and collector Diffstaks
>(150L/s), there was evidence of condensation of Santovac on the baffles in
>the pipework leading to the collectors.  The baffles in the pipework under
>the source did not have visible evidence of diff pump fluid and the source
>and source housing visually appeared to be clean.  The pipework containing
>the inlet and changeover diffusion pumps (40 L/s) was contaminated with
>diff pump oil.  Has anyone had experience with such a calamity and what is
>the best way of going about cleaning the contaminated pipework.  Edwards
>recommends cleaning with GENKLENE (stabilized trichloroethane) followed by
>rinsing with acetone and baking at 75 oC.  Any advice as to how to proceed
>would be most appreciated.  Also, has anyone replaced their diffusion pumps
>with turbos on an older model PRISM?
>
>Grieving in Gainesville,
>David Hodell
>
>David Hodell
>Professor of Geology
>University of Florida
>P.O. Box 117340
>Gainesville, FL  32611-7340
>http://ess.geology.ufl.edu/hodell/hodell.html
>
>Please Note: My new e-mail address is [log in to unmask]
>All mail to the old address will be forwarded to the new one.
>
>