Dear all,
I'd like to learn about platinum crucible cleaning after melting activities. What is the alternative agent except for HF to clean out the crucible? If this agent does not take so much time for cleaning, then it will be welcome.
Thanks in advance for your kind interest.
Alan F Rawle is correct. The constituents of the melt is essential to know how to clean the crucible. The most effective and application insensitive path is like you say, HF. HCl may also work for some applications, but again it is completely dependent upon the melt composition and phase.
In the past, I've personally fluxed the crucible, with alkali or alkaline-earth carbonates. This removes much of the residual material in the crucible, resulting in only an overnight cleaning in HF. Stay away from Na containing fluxes as it can mildly corrode and degrade the crucible.
Dear Alan F Rawle and Alec Ladonis
Many thanks for your kind responses. Particularly, I am now working with two types of glass systems: (i) borosilicate, (ii) borotellurite. Hope this helps you all for suggesting alternative ways.
Recep Kurtulus,
Thanks! The borosilicates should have no problems being dissolved in HF, and will become very brittle and easy to remove in HCl. I've used the fluxing method with borosilicates before, and that works fairly well to get rid of a lot of the excess material.
I've not worked with borotellurite glasses, but I would expect similar results.
Good luck!
You may want to check next reference (p. 98; in Portuguese), which addresses cleaning of platinum crucibles from molten glass ― without using HF:
Thesis Cristalização de Biomateriais Vitrocerâmicos e Mineralização...
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