Hello Sandra!
Perchloric acid reacts with many materials to form peroxides which are explosive when they dry out!
See this link:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_173314_en.pdf
ÉÉAnd many others.
Very Truly Yours,
Dr. Bob Haugen
Director of Product and Technology Development
Flow Sciences Inc.
2025 Mercantile Drive
Leland, NC 28451
Phone 910 332 4878
From: DCHAS-L Discussion List [mailto:dchas-l**At_Symbol_Here**med.cornell.edu]On Behalf Of Koster, Sandra
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2015 2:58 PM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Perchloric acid use
I have a researcher who would like to run small-scale (~300 microliter) digestions with perchloric acid but we don't have a perchloric acid hood. Does anyone know of a trap that we could use in a regular fume hood to prevent vapors escaping to cause a safety hazard? Or perhaps the set-up described below is sufficient to minimize potential problems.
To quote: "The experiments that we run here and have been trying to bring back to UWL involve a step where we assay for lipid concentration by cleaving the phosphate group using perchloric acid. The cleavage is done with only 300 uL of perchloric acid per sample, and the samples are capped with a glass marble under reflux conditions (air cooled at the tops of the tubes) so that very little, if any, perchloric acid escapes from the tubes......The problem (I believe) is that the hoods at UWL are not spec'd for use with perchloric acid. We have been trying to develop an alternative assay, but it is not working and it is using a lot of time and resources. Is there any way we can use the perchloric acid version at home and move forward with meaningful experiments?."
Thanks,
Sandra Koster, Senior Lecturer
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
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