Dear Isogeochemists,
A word of advice to anyone whom would like to use "building air" in
their lab. When I first set up an isotope lab at Syracuse University,
the plan was to use the building air compressor to power the valves
in a 253-Kiel-HDO equilibrator combination. For a number of reasons I
decided on a lab specific air compressor. Once insulated for sound,
it wasn't too loud or disruptive.

About 2 months after the installation, a colleague (Hank Mullins)
walks into the isotope lab covered from his knees to his face in a
greasy black slime. Apparently when he tried to use the building air
in his sed lab it vented a couple liters of black fluid straight
at/on him. This left a somewhat permanent negative image (or outline)
of Hank on the opposite wall. Whether the image can be removed and
auctioned on E-Bay remains to be seen?

The moral(?) of this story is that building air should always be well
filtered before it gets anywhere near your equipment. Otherwise, in
this instance the SU equipment would have been pumped full of the
black slime that coated the sed lab (probably not covered by
warrantee?!).
Cheers,
Bill
--
Dr. William P. Patterson
Associate Professor
Department of Geological Sciences
114 Science Place
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon SK S7N 5E2
Canada
Phone: 306-966-5691(office); 306-966-5712(lab)
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://128.233.87.242/bill.html