Had my old man pick up a couple of tanks of argon gas while he was out doing something or other and happened to be passing the store. Could have done with some last night, as I recently took delivery of some lithium metal. Its packaged unusually, not in oil, but in a sealed plastic packet full of some manner of inert gas. Keeping it in its packet until needed of course, but I just have a gut feeling that the plastic may potentially over time have some slight permeability to the ambient atmosphere, and as such, am going to be keeping it, sealed, packet and all, in a jar full of drying agent and inert gas, although when I went to fill the jar with argon to exclude oxygen, my tank ran dry. So I had my old man pick me up two more. That way I have a spare for the next time I need an inert atmosphere and one tank runs out, that I may still continue with whatever it is I might be doing at the time.
Temporarily I came up with a solution though, a mixture of calcium chloride (dessicant) and a teaspoonful or two of magnesium powder, which will act as a sacrificial reductant, binding any air present during opening of the jar, and being itself oxidized, taking up the oxygen from the air. Although displacing the atmosphere with argon, is better (I'll leave the Mg and CaCl2 in there mind you, to scrub any O2 from whenever the jar needs opening as and when I need to make use of the Li metal)
Chinese suppliers have some funny ass ideas about customs forms though....that came marked as a 'gift' of 'metal beads', when in fact the stuff is in flat square-ish thick slices of sheet metal, quite certainly looking not in the least like beads. Although I am pleased they declared it as a gift, saved me paying import duty.
And one thing threw me about another order that came the day before. I'd bought some fine nickel powder, and of all the weird ass things...it was declared as 'essence'. Made me wonder if I had gotten the wrong item sent me, or someone completely fucked up and sent me somebody else's order. It was only by weighing it that I was able to tell what it was, for I only had 2 orders of any reagents that could weigh 100g, and the other was a white crystalline powder and couldn't be it, so it came down to a process of elimination to find out quite what in hell's name I'd actually received:P
(the other, being potassium iodide, at the weight of the nickel, so the two couldn't readily be confused unless totally blind, and even then, with difficulty)
