One-Atmosphere Gas Mixing Furnaces

Next to conventional high temperature box furnaces, we employ vertical gas mixing furnaces for heating at controlled oxygen fugacities. Such furnaces are an indispensable tool in experimental methods; they allow expriments or just synthesis of starting materials to be perfomed under a wide range of redox conditions. The gas atmosphere can be adjusted using CO2 - H2 mixtures at temperatures up to 1650°C to simulate reducing or moderately oxidizing conditions as they are applicable for a wide range of metamorphic, magmatic or tectonic environments. Note, that for safety reasons we do not employ mixtures of commonly used CO2 and highly toxic CO. However, our lab is nontheless monitored by CO gas sensors.

The vertical nature of the furnace tubes requires that samples are most commonly hung into the hot zone of the furnace. Attaching the sample to thin wires of e.g. platinum metal, allows such wires to be burnt-through at the end of the experiment (by a sufficiently strong electrical current). This causes the sample to fall into a water filled reservoir at the bottom at the furnace for rapid, almost instantaneous cooling.

In addition to standard furnaces which operate to temperatures of approximately 1600-1700°C our lab houses a custom built ultra-high temperature gas mixing furnace, which allows temperatures in excess of 2200°C to be reached.

Contact

Dr. Christian Liebske
Lecturer at the Department of Earth Sciences<br>
  • NW E 76.1
  • +41 44 632 78 03

Inst. für Geochemie und Petrologie
Clausiusstrasse 25
8092 Zürich
Switzerland

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