6X6x12 Rectangular Modular Vacuum Heated Cube for Inert Atmosphere Dry Glove Box Storage Antechamber Applications

Includes: 6X6X12 Ideal Vacuum Rectangular Modular Vacuum Chamber, 2- 6x12 heater plates, 2-6x12 blank plates, 6x6 Glass Viewing Door Plate, and 6x6 Plate with 2-KF-25 Ports and Hardware. Custom Dry Glovebox Docking plate sold separately.

This Ideal Vacuum, dually heated, 6x6x12 rectangular modular vacuum Cube chamber, is specially constructed to attach to a glove box or dry box. It is the Ideal solution for adding vacuum compartment storage to any inert atmosphere glove box or dry box or modified to be used as an antechamber for an inert atmosphere dry box.

A sealing dock adapter plate, affixed to the glass viewing door plate side of the cube and bolted to the flat side of the glove box or inert atmosphere dry box, allows the user to place their hands into the Cube and perform tasks inside it, all from inside the glove box or dry box. This is useful for the manipulation of objects and to provide organized product or sample storage where a separate vacuum or atmosphere is desired. The sealing docking plate is not included and must be custom engineered for the researcher’s unique application.

The two plate heaters (P108729) can safely provide controlled temperatures up to 140° C. This allows our heated Cube to be used for bake-out of samples or for applications such as sample drying or removing low vapor pressure solvents off the surface of a solid product or sample.

Two evacuation ports (KF-25), located opposite the glass viewing door, allow the user to configure their system for pumping the Cube to any desired vacuum level, from atmosphere down to 3x10-8 Torr, the rating of our Cube (ultra-high vacuum - UHV).

A glove box is a hermetically sealed, controlled atmosphere, enclosure. Glove boxes allow a user to perform operations and handle material in an atmosphere different from the ambient atmosphere. Gloves are built into the sides or front of the glovebox enclosure. Gloves can be made of a variety of plastic or rubber compounds, including neoprene, nitrile, butyl, butydyl, polypropylene or Hypalon®. Gloves allow a user to manipulate objects without breaking the enclosure seal, prevent potential injury to a user by exposure to harmful substances and keep the materials inside the box free of contamination. Glove boxes are normally maintained at either a slightly lower or slightly higher pressure than ambient atmosphere, dependent on the type of materials and process conditions required.

A glove box in which the enclosure is typically maintained at a pressure lower than that of the surrounding atmosphere causes atmospheric air to flow inward should there be any microscopic leak (typically occurring through the gloves). This type of glove box allows a user to work with substances that could be injurious (e.g., radioactive materials, toxic substances, infectious disease agents, or high biosafety level pathogens). In a negative pressure glove box, dangerous material cannot escape the enclosure, enter the user’s workspace and cause harm. HEPA glove box exhaust filters are required for hazardous material containment. Note that some hazardous material glove boxes use inert gas glove boxes similar to those described below.

The second type of glove box, referred to as a dry box, or sometimes an inert atmosphere glove box, nitrogen glove box, low oxygen and/or humidity glove box or anaerobic box, is normally used for working with air or water reactive materials. It is typically maintained at a slightly elevated pressure as compared to ambient atmosphere.

For experimentation and processes or products which require O2 or H2O free conditions, the atmosphere inside the glove box is replaced, by a process of displacement and dilution, with a high purity inert gas such as argon, nitrogen, hydrogen, helium, or a combination of these gases. Argon or nitrogen are most commonly used in such a dry gas purge system since they are the two least expensive, most abundant inert gases, are naturally dry and do not hold moisture. Oxygen and humidity levels can be kept at 1% or less inside a dry box. The inert atmosphere established inside the box prevents undesirable chemical reactions, such as oxidation and hydrolysis from degrading samples or product. Any small leak which might occur in a positive pressure drybox, would be an opening for the inert gas (harmless in small quantities) to be forced out the box instead of letting air and particulate contaminants in.

Inert gas dry boxes are used by universities, industrial labs and manufacturers for the research and development of emerging technologies such as lithium ion batteries, atomic layer deposition , 3D printing/additive manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and tissue culture work, including stem cell research, OLED/PLEDs, photovoltaics, and other semiconductors and laser welding titanium.

In order to maintain the inert atmosphere inside the dry box, a smaller enclosure, known as an antechamber, or sometimes called a loadlock or air lock, is mounted on its side. The antichamber load lock has a sealing inner door, which can open into the dry box and a sealing outer door which opens to ambient atmosphere. The ante-chamber inner door is kept closed and material is placed into the anti-chamber from the atmospheric door side. The outer door is closed and inert gas is introduced, usually under vacuum. O2 and H20 laden air are purged and replaced with inert gas. Vacuum speeds the evacuation of air and pulls dust particles and other unwanted substances from the enclosure. Once the O2 and H20 are reduced to desirable levels, the inner door is opened from inside the drybox. The user, or a robotic manipulator transports the material into the inert atmosphere dry box where it can be processed.

The Ideal Vacuum cube listed here, or another of our modular Cubes of a different size, can be custom configured to be a perfect antechamber for any dry box system. Add a second door, a dry box docking plate and a side plate with ports for vacuum and introduction of the inert gas. The Cube can be set up to automatically pump and purge the antechamber. Our quick opening and easy latching Cube door mechanism speeds the process even more. The Ideal Vacuum modular Cube system can be used for thru-flow work processes and multiple Cubes can be stacked and connected to create an antechamber even for long materials.

Often, a user needs to further process their product or samples in an inert gas vacuum environment. Maybe you need to heat or cool the product, cure sensitive materials under controlled conditions, or store samples for further processing or to have multiple samples exposed to different environmental conditions.

Our vacuum storage Cube custom solutions can be configured with plate heaters which can safely provide controlled and constant temperatures up to 140° C. These heated plates can be used for bake-out of samples or for applications such as sample drying or removing low vapor pressure solvents off the surface of a solid product or sample.

A variety of other thermal plate options are available, too. Vacuum isolated thermal test fixtures for recirculating chilled or heated water baths from-150° C to 150° C are offered. For extreme cold environment storage and to capture high moisture and solvents that outgas from processed materials, we offer a liquid nitrogen (LN2) high vacuum pumping trap and cryogenic test fixture which provides temperatures down to -196° C.

Our scaleable Ideal Vacuum modular Cube system allows you to have one or more custom storage chambers, each of which could be set to a different vacuum pressure, thermal and controlled atmospheric condition, and all attached to your inert atmosphere dry box system. (see below an illustration of one of our custom-made, nine compartment vacuum storage Cube glove box products). For example, if you want your product or sample in chamber compartment 4 to stay under a dry, ultra-high purity (UHP) atmosphere of argon gas at 4x10-5 Torr and at 90° C for four hours, and your sample in compartment 6 to be subjected to the same conditions except the purge backfill would be Nitrogen, we can design a vacuum pump, purge back fill, temperature controlled, timed, automated system for that.

Each chamber in a multiple Cube vacuum compartment system could also have a selected purge gas type. For example, if you want your product or sample in chamber compartment 4 to stay under a dry, ultra-high purity (UHP) atmosphere of argon gas . Our vacuum cube storage compartment could be designed with vacuum pump, purge back fill with UHP argon. This could all be automated.