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SiliCycle MiniBlock® User Guide
48
www.SiliCycle.com | [email protected]
• Muffle furnace capable of uniform heating to 400°C.
• Metal rack(s) for holding the reaction tubes. E.g. those provided by SiliCycle to hold collection tubes.
Hole diameters should match the outer diameter of the tubes.
• Blue Teflon® heat-shrink tubing (13254015), available from customer service at SiliCycle.
This procedure is intended to provide you with instructions for replacing the blue Teflon® sleeve on the tip of the glass reaction tubes. You will only
need to carry out this procedure if the existing sleeves become damaged or deteriorate with use. Damage such as tearing, folding, splitting, or any
disfigurement of the sleeve may cause liquids to leak through the luer fittings.
Please be aware that while these instructions are intended to allow you to carry out the procedure at your facility, the results may vary and you may
not be able to consistently obtain optimum results. This is due to the fact that we use special rigging and apparatus to carry out the heat-shrinking
procedure. If you encounter problems in carrying out the instructions, contact Customer Service (+1 877 745-4292, North America Only,
or +1 418 874-0054, for the rest of the world, or send us an e-mail at [email protected]).
1. Place tubes, luer end up in the appropriate
metal rack
(a plastic racks will melt).
2. Cut approximately 8 mm sections of the heat-shrink tubing, ensuring a square cut. When placed on the luer, the Teflon® sleeve should leave
1-1.5 mm of the ground glass tip uncovered. The bottom end of the sleeve should rest on the shoulder of the glass tube. The glass tip has some
variations in length of the luers although the overall length is very precise. See the illustration for clarification.
3. Place Teflon® sleeves over the luers. (This step is easier if several pieces of Teflon® are put on a short piece of wire. The sleeves can be slid
off the wire directly onto the luer.)
4. Place the tubes on a metal heating rack, one (
1
) or two (2) rows at a time.
5. Using a piece of wire, manipulate the Teflon® Sleeve into the correct starting position.
Figure 46: Glass Reaction Tube with Teflon® Sleeve
Blue Teflon®
Heat Shrink Sleeve
6. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until rack is filled correctly.
7. Different reaction tube sizes have different arrangements on the heating racks.
8. Preheat the muffle furnace to 350°C and place the filled rack inside the oven for seven (
7
) minutes. Do not allow tubes to remain in the oven longer
than seven (
7
) minutes, as this may cause splitting of the sleeve.
9. Remove rack and allow to cool, this takes approximately ten (10) to fifteen (15) minutes.
10. Following thorough cooling, inspect the tubes visually and by touch to make sure that they are coated correctly. See page 49 for quality checks.
11. Either reheat, or remove and reapply Teflon® to the tubes that do not pass inspection.