Hey Man, Thanks for the awesome instructional video. We have the same instrument at our School but the trainer is not so knowledgeable. So, I was browsing internet to have better understanding of the instrument. I have a question. In our instrument, we do have one additional dewar placed adjacent to the degassing port. The two metal probes that I see adjecent to the degassing ports in your video are placed inside the dewar (LN2) in our setup. I am curious what purpose does it solve. I do not see that dewar in your instrument setup, so I imagine it is not needed for degassing or analysis. Could you explain on that. Thanks
Hi Sharad, sorry for the late reply. Actually, the set-up in your lab is correct. The two tubes adjacent to the degassing ports are utilized to collect organic solvents evaporated from the MOF during the activation process. During working, liquid N2 is always required to cool the two tubes. If not, the solvent will enter the pump and lead to potential damage.
Thanks for the amazing video! You mentioned that the sample should be dried for about 24hours after degassing. My concern is that during the process of drying (or trying to dry the sample), there may be contamination or loss of sample weight. Is that something we should worry about before we run the analysis? Thanks in anticipation.
Thanks for watching! Yes, I agree that the drying process will lead to a loss of mass ( maybe due to the evaporation of guest molecules in MOFs). So we usually weigh the mass of empty tube, tube with samples before and after drying. Through the calculation we can figure out an accurate mass of dry MOF samples. If your sample is very labile and will decompose during heating, maybe you can try some mild conditions for activation, such as supercritical CO2. I wish this can be useful for you.
