Refinery
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Registered: 17-2-2014
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Blending vs grinding materials?
Does blending damage solids? Many processes describe to grind stuff in mortar or otherwise, but I have been pretty routinely just blended everything
simply because I don't own a mortar.
Only issue could be overheating, but if the material is blended properly in short bursts or is immersed in a liquid, it shouldn't occur. I have a
powerful table blender only for my kitchen and I've managed to cause some solids to smoke a little with longer blending, but the lab blender I use has
maybe 200 watts while the table blender has 2kW motor.
On the topic, is it even theoretically possible to break molecules with physical force caused by crushing, blending, etc. crystals? Obviously we're
talking about 6x10E23+molecules per mol here, and decomposing a few shouldn't be of matter for most uses.
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Draeger
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As far as I know it's only possible to break the molecules of very unstable and explosive compounds mechanically. Thermal decomposition is, as you
mentioned, the main risk it seems. Mortars are less effective.
Were the processes about toxic substances? Blenders tend to dust more, at least from what I've seen, so that would explain why they would recommend
mortars.
I'm not sure, though.
[Edited on 20-7-2020 by Draeger]
Collected elements:
Al, Cu, Ga, C (coal), S, Zn, Na
Collected compounds:
Inorganic:
NaOH; NaHCO3; MnCl2; MnCO3; CuSO4; FeSO4; aq. 30-33% HCl; aq. NaClO; aq. 9,5% ammonia; aq. 94-96% H2SO4; aq. 3% H2O2
Organic:
citric acid, sodium acetate, sodium citrate, petroleum, mineral oil
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Refinery
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Dusting is absolutely true. When opening the blender can, a very fine, persistent cloud of dust always emerges. I would not use it to blend anything
highly toxic or biopersistent stuff, unless special conditions are applied. Last time I blended charcoal and it is just absolute mess due to
lightweightness of carbon dust, which just gets everywhere and I ended up bagging the whole blender can in a bag to transfer it into a ziploc.
Grinding TCCA tablets is another pain, the stench of chlorine is just awful and it persists.
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Whathappensif
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Yes, blending does damage solids, depending on the process and the solid in question.
This is the field of mechanochemistry.
If you're going to use a blender for energetic materials, obviously use separate blenders for oxidizing and reducing agents.
And FYI - cops love to take swabs of blenders of suspect labs.
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zed
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Umm. Ball Milling?
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