Thanks, thats good to know that the exchange rate is fairly favourable. The prices looked (and still do really) horrendous. Asking about S 300+ for three pieces of vycor tubing, and for a single crystallization/evaporation dish, ~500, 250 or so for one small (250ml! in borosilicate standard lab glass I'd expect to pay between $5-10 for it, and free shipping likely as not) Vycor flask.
I need to get some though, but not much, and especially of the sort of stuff I need, like distillation and reflux equipment, and especially of significant capacity, that is going to be horrendously expensive.
Hundreds just for three pieces of tubing....jesus christ....but it IS impressive stuff, even more so than fused quartz, its extremely resistant to chemical assault, the only things to worry about being hydrofluoric acid, and searing hot, molten fused alkali hydroxides or very concentrated, very hot hydroxide solutions (not sure actually, if the likes of aqueous KOH would even attack Vycor at boiling temperatures, although molten alkalis at several hundred degrees 'C are another matter, and like HF will attack it (and people), although dilute HF can even be used clean Vycor glass, although it will take a few micrometers off the surface (10% aqueous hydrofluoric acid is used as a cleaning agent for it!)
And it is super-resistant to high temperatures. To put it in perspective, my borosilicate glass labware, is rated for up to a bit under 500 'C, for peak demands, whilst Vycor is rated for taking a real vicious roasting, at up to 1200 'C without cracking, and will take over 100 degrees rapid change as thermal shock without breaking.
So you can see why I want some, after reading about it. But fuck me, Vycor glass SO expensive, its a
borosilicate glass that has been given a special leaching treatment of some nature in order to give it a passivated surface layer of some sort, and a special recipe that makes it incredibly resistant to high atemperature and has a very, very low coefficient of thermal expansion, similar to how fused quartz will take a similarly vicious beasting, and either can be subjected to outright thermal brutality whilst full of searing hot acids (with the exclusion of course of hydrofluoric acid, and also phosphoric acid, but only
when it is both highly concentrated, containing a significant amount of polyphosphoric acids and also when heated, to at least 200 'C, with attack starting at etching of a few micrometers an hour or so at 300 'C and 70~80% phosphoric acid or thereabouts, and more significant when its at 400 to 700 'C, when its really really hot it can start doing serious damage, although it does, reportedly, passivate it against attack from hydrofluoric acid by forming a surface layer of SiO2-P2O5 that serves like armor plating, although I'd not trust anything bar teflon against HF, and specially made nickel alloys designed for handling HF like monel metal, because hydrofluoric acid is so fucking damn dangerous, a little spill, if its concentrated won't just burn, it'll penetrate intact skin, be absorbed systemically and both leach the calcium out of your blood, precipitating it and turning your blood to calcium fluoride sludge, triggering a massive heart attack from the severe hypocalcaemia, and agonizing pain, as it leaches the calcium out of your bones as it does, as if pausing for a light snack.)
I want a vycor set, not just a couple of pieces, although its how I'll have to buy it, item by item, a few hundred pounds to a grand or so at a time, and build it up until I've got a proper set. But first, will be distillation equipment for use in destructive distillations, as they are called, where something is, rather than a solvent solution being heated, a dry solid is distilled or flame-pyrolyzed with a blowtorch. The sort of process used for simultaneously converting red phosphorus to white phosphorus and distilling the WP to purify it under inert gas.
Thanks for the tip on the exchange rate odeon. Doesn't surprise me about the brexit thing though. I wish they would stop fucking about and get on with doing what they were told to do. If they had had a 'remain' vote then it would be in place and sealed with treaties and that poisonous fucking piece of shit traitor to the nation Theresa May's slobber, piss and vinegar. May she suffer a thousand devils to burn her eyes out over and over and over again for the rest of eternity when she dies. Devils be damned, she sure is, in both cases. Bitch. Traitor and poison dwarf god-damn accursed spawn of a syphilitic prostitute's manky, scabby train-tunnel vulva. Filthy traitorous toxic WHORE.
Fucking hell I so can't stand that piece of shit that calls itself prime minister. As bad as Bliar...ahem...Blair...
dly,
