Good point on the cardboard, Richard. I always pre-cut strips of Kapton tape, so that I wasn't bringing in cardboard at all. --Scott Calvin Sarah Lawrence College On Aug 5, 2009, at 8:13 PM, Richard Mayes wrote:
Todd,
Are you working with oxygen sensitive or moisture sensitive samples (or both)? If it's just moisture sensitive, then you can use regular 2-sided tape from your local office supply and polypropylene film to seal samples in polycarbonate or aluminum holders (or even pellets if you're lucky enough to be able to press pellets that hold their shape). Chemplex Industries is where I have gotten the polypropylene films I have used (and Kapton as well - www.findtape.com also has a good selection of Kapton tape).
I used this method with many samples that involved heavily chlorided titanium on silica and had few problems if they're used within 5-7 days after packing in a glove box (the samples with problems resulted from improperly sealed samples). You can get jars (baby food jars work very well to ship individual samples) to store the samples for shipping and if you pack the jars in the glove box, you will have the box atmosphere in the jars, for a little while anyway.
A note on oxygen sensitivity (and to an extent moisture sensitivity): you probably already know this, but I'll say it anyway...if cardboard is present in the role of Kapton tape, you may have oxygen/water diffusion from the cardboard for a few days after you take it into the box. Our rule of thumb was to pull vacuum on anything involving cardboard for at least 48 hrs before taking it into the box. All that to say, take your supplies into the box a few days ahead of time to allow your box catalyst to take care of any residual oxygen/water that make their way in.
HTH, -Richard