I've tried using aluminum foil to cover my samples but with little success. (The samples stick to the foil upon burning causing very little yield to measure.) The temperature is around 500 degC which is below the aluminum foil's MP. Thanks!
I assume you're trying to pyrolyze them? In that case I would first dry and grind them in a fine powder and then use a conventional crucible set with cover (or the Al foil).
Good luck,
-Steve
If you don't have any gas flow, you are going to re-condense tars onto the solid - and onto the solid's support (the foil). But if all you want is yield, why not simply measure the mass of the foil, mass of raw sample + foil, and mass of raw sample + pyrolyzed sample - you'll then have your yield without having to physically recover the sample. A note on foil, though: aluminum, while not a standard pyrolysis catalyst, may be promoting devolatilization (we have seen this with many inorganics). If you want to be sure you are just devolatilizing the sample without any catalytic interference, I would use an inert crucible.
Thank you for your answers! I have decided to ditch the aluminum foil and use only the crucibles instead. (I used to wrap them around the feathers and place them in crucibles as to lower O2 interference.) I am trying to do carbonization actually which is the slower type of pyrolysis.
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