Entry of contaminants cannot be afforded in a laboratory. There should be some method to prevent the air borne and the duct particles from entering chemicals. There are some chemicals which are highly sensitive to external agents. The external agents could be anything. It can be dirt, dust or other environmental factors such as moisture and humidity. There are various chemicals which are highly reactive towards moisture. As soon as they get in contact with the moisture in the room they start reacting and can even produce toxic products in either liquid form or even gaseous form. Such chemicals which react with moisture are known as hygroscopic.
How can we prevent reaction of such chemicals with moisture?
Chemicals with high reactivity with moisture can also be preserved and prevented from reacting with the moisture. This can be done using desiccators.
What are desiccators?
Stainless Steel Desiccator Cabinets are very important equipment in a laboratory. They are sealed and enclosed boxes which contain desiccants. Desiccants are used to preserve the highly reactive elements or chemicals items. These moisture sensitive substances can be used for another time as well. Chemicals such as Cobalt chloride paper is highly reactive with moisture, hence it can be stored in a desiccator so that it can be preserved.
Uses of a desiccator
- A major and very common use of a desiccator is that they are mainly used to protect the chemical compound which are hygroscopic in nature to react with water from moisture contentment in the air.
- Whenever a desiccator is opened the content inside the desiccator gets exposed to the environmental moisture. It takes a bit of a time to gain the low humidity content inside a desiccator. So the most highly reactive compound are clearly not suitable for storing in a desiccator.
Constituents used in a desiccator
A desiccator has various compartments. The lower compartment of the desiccator is stored with silica gel, calcined quicklime, drierite and calcium chloride. These compound are used to absorb the moisture content form the sample which are stored in the desiccator and make them dry.
Pass-through desiccators
There are various types of desiccators available. Pass-through desiccators are one of them. Even the pass-through desiccators plays the same role. The only difference between a normal desiccator and a pass-through desiccator is that in pass-through desiccators the substances can be transferred from one chamber to another.
Uses of a pass-through desiccator
- Pass-through desiccators are better than the normal desiccator. They allow the workers to transfer the substances from one chamber to another without letting any contaminant enter the container.
- Unnecessary entry of garbage is not at all possible in a pass-through desiccator.
- Pass-through desiccator is an ideal choice for a cleanroom. Pass-through desiccators made of stainless steel are of great use. As they are corrosion free and their life span is more than the other desiccators.
- Pass-through desiccators have automatic interlock mechanism, this helps in preventing cross contamination of the substance.
Hence these are the uses of a desiccator and the pass-through desiccators. But the conclusion is they are very important in a laboratory.
