bentonite

2 Articles

Kitty Litter And Broken Light Bulbs Power This Homebrew Gas Chromatograph

August 8, 2019 by 29 Comments

We’re always on the lookout for unexpected budget builds here at Hackaday, and stumbling across a low-cost, DIY version of an instrument that sells for tens of thousands of dollars is always a treat. And so when we saw a tip for a homebrew gas chromatograph in the tips line this morning, we jumped on it. (Video embedded below.)

For those who haven’t had the pleasure, gas chromatography is a chemical analytical method that’s capable of breaking a volatile sample up into its component parts. Like all chromatographic methods, it uses an immobile matrix to differentially retard the flow of a mobile phase containing the sample under study, such that measurement of the transit time through the system can be made and information about the physical properties of the sample inferred.

The gas chromatograph that [Chromatogiraffery] built uses a long stainless steel tube filled with finely ground bentonite clay, commonly known as kitty litter, as the immobile phase. A volatile sample is injected along with an inert carrier gas – helium from a party balloon tank, in this case – and transported along the kitty litter column by gas pressure. The sample interacts with the column as it moves along, with larger species held back while smaller ones speed along. Detection is performed with thermal conductivity cells that use old incandescent pilot lamps that have been cracked open to expose their filaments to the stream of gas; using a Wheatstone bridge and a differential amp, thermal differences between the pure carrier gas and the eluate from the column are read and plotted by an Arduino.

The homebrew GC works surprisingly well, and we can’t wait for [Chromatogiraffery] to put out more details of his build.

Continue reading “Kitty Litter And Broken Light Bulbs Power This Homebrew Gas Chromatograph” →

Fire Extinguisher Ball Mill Destined To Grind Kitty Litter

March 2, 2018 by 15 Comments

Nothing says hack like a tool quickly assembled from a few scrap-heap parts. For [Turbo Conquering Mega Eagle], his junkyard finds were a fire extinguisher, an old office fan, and a few scraps of plywood; the result was a quick and easy ball mill.

There’s very little mention of what said ball mill will be for — [TCME] said something about milling bentonite clay, AKA kitty litter — but that’s hardly the point. Having previously fabricated a much smaller version of this ball mill that could chuck up in his lathe, he scaled this one up considerably. The spent fire extinguisher was relieved of the valve and some external bits to create the mill’s drum. Plywood was used for a quick frame to support rollers and to turn a couple of pulleys for the running gear. The fan motor proved barely capable of performing, though, even with the mechanical advantage of the pulleys and an improvised drive belt. The motor just didn’t have the oomph to turn the drum when loaded with ceramic balls, but a quick adjustment to the drive train did the trick. The video below shows the whole build process, which couldn’t have taken much more than a couple of hours.

It looks like a sand casting project may be on deck for [TCME]’s milled bentonite, so we’ll look forward to that. Perhaps his other recent fire extinguisher build will make an appearance in that video too.

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