Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Mantle or oil bath temp question.

FriendlyFinger - 30-6-2006 at 18:36

If I wanted to heat a temp sensitive solution to say 104 deg C, usually I would use an oil bath at about 108 deg. If I wanted to use a mantle to do the same thing, would the tempreture of the solution where the mantle element meets the glass be a lot higher than that compared to an oil bath, thereby creating more by-products?

chemoleo - 30-6-2006 at 18:48

If you have a stirbar in the glass vessel, and if the temperature is controlled by the reading *inside* the vessel, no. Important is the mixing. Without it, particularly if the vessel's contents are solid, you are of course in trouble.

For this reason, I adjusted the mantle voltage according to the temp reading inside the glass bulb, after letting the temperature stabilise for i.e. 15 minutes. Just use a voltage controller, and run a couple of trial series, at various voltages, and see where the beaker temperature settles. Volume shouldnt be that much of an issue, as the mantle pretty much wraps around half of the beaker.