Cap,

We are presently using the CE "anhidronie" that comes from Italy, it comes
out of sealed bottles.  How do you clean it up, in a air drying oven at 65
degrees C?  In a vacuum oven?

We buy our other expendable chemicals from COSTECH, they seem to be pretty
good.  Have you had trouble with Bruno?

bill

At 08:30 AM 08/09/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>Dear Bill,
>
>Not sure if this is any consolation to you but I have found over the years
>that the quality of the chemicals that are used in both the oxidizing and
>reduction furnaces, not to mention the anhydrone in the water trap have
>actually acted like a chromatographic column and caused tailing? I don't
>know why anhydrone would do this (?) but it is something to consider. I'm
>not talking about spent chemicals, I'm talking about brand new stuff right
>out of the bottle. I traced this one down after a week of beating my head
>against the wall, changing gases, repacking columns, etc. Just changing the
>manufacturer of the anhydrone fixed the problem. ???? Right! It is really
>bad when you can't even count on the chemicals! Most of the manufacturers
>tout thier product for the CHN crowd, but often what is good enough for
>them, isn't good enough for isotope work! For what its worth I use 5.0
>helium and have never had a problem with it.
>
>Best of luck,
>Cap
>
>Douglas "Cap" Introne
>Research Associate Professor/Laboratory Director
>Stable Isotope Laboratory
>Sawyer Environmental Research Center
>University of Maine
>Orono, ME 04469
>
>Tel. (207) 581-2192
>Fax (207) 581-3490
>E-mail [log in to unmask]
>URL: http://iceage.umeqs.maine.edu/geology/sil/home.htm
>
----------------------------------------------------------
William J. Showers
Dept. of Marine, Earth, & Atm Sciences
North Carolina State University

(919) 515-7143 - voice
(919) 515-7802 - fax
[log in to unmask] - email

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