In the Laboratory

1500 Journal of Chemical Education Vol. 81 No. 10 October 2004 www.JCE.DivCHED.org

For over a century, solids and liquids that had to be kept
dry were stored in glass desiccators containing a drying agent
such as anhydrous calcium sulfate. Today, the need for stor-
ing a variety of air- and water-sensitive chemicals under dry
conditions is still a common practice in undergraduate, gradu-
ate, and research chemistry laboratories. Yet the commercial
glass and plastic desiccators have become more expensive.
1
Moreover, they chip, crack, and break with regularity in un-
dergraduate chemistry laboratories. Vacuum desiccators are
even more expensive than the simple two-piece variety.
During the past eight decades, a number of inexpensive
desiccators (13) have been reported, some made from a va-
riety of novel materials such as: plastic sandwich bags (4),
coffee cans

(5), and cookie jars

(6). The present article de-
scribes how a new kitchen appliance costing less than half
the price of a single, large desiccator
1
can be used in the labo-
ratory for quickly producing low-cost, disposable vacuum
desiccators. The appliance, which has a small foot print (6
in. 15 in.) is marketed for quickly, conveniently, and inex-
pensively shrink-wrapping foods for storage in a refrigerator
or freezer. But the same device can provide an entire under-
graduate chemistry laboratory with easy-to-use and dispos-
able desiccator bags for a small fraction of the cost of
conventional glass or plastic desiccators.
In the present example, the Seal-a-Meal device (Figure
1A) distributed by the Rival Company of the Holmes Group,
Inc. had been purchased by the author for less than $100 at
a neighborhood K-Mart store. This appliance came with two
rolls of a double-walled, heavy-plastic material measuring 11
in. 120 in. (Figure 1E); plus an assortment of specialized
plastic bags of various sizes. Two 11 in. 120 in. rolls of the
thick shrink-wrapping material (also distributed by Rival)
costs less than $10 per box and the two rolls can be used in a
laboratory for making from 30 to 60 desiccators.
Conventional glass desiccators require careful greasing
at the ground-glass interfaces to achieve a perfect seal. Plas-
tic desiccators are known to eventually leak because over time
the plastic interface tends to warp. But once heat-sealed, the
disposable desiccator bags (Figure 1BD) remain completely
intact until they are cut open. Each 11 in. 120 in. roll of
this material can be used to make approximately 30 small (4
in. 11 in.) disposable desiccator bags for about $0.17 each
or 15 large desiccator bags (8 in. 11 in.) for $0.34 each.
After the contents are heat sealed together with a desiccant
they remain dry indefinitely. Moreover, the shrink-wrapped
item and desiccant do not take up more space than the origi-
nal items as opposed to the space occupied by a conventional,
glass desiccator.
An oversized heat-sealed desiccator bag can be used sev-
eral times by narrowly cutting it open in a straight line along
the seal after its first use. The open side must be trimmed in
a straight line so that the bag can be quickly resealed in the
Seal-a-Meal device.
In addition to serving as an unbreakable and inexpen-
sive desiccator, the system is useful for sealing bottles and
vials of corrosive and irritating substances and also large
bottles of solvent that do not fit into a large desiccator (Fig-
ure 1D). Unlike Saran Wrap or similar cling film, once the
double-walled, heavy-plastic material is vacuum-sealed it is
indefinitely impermeable to vapors. Thus six months after
Low-Cost Vacuum Desiccator
Frederick Sweet
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO 63110;
sweetf@medicine.wustl.edu
Cost-Effective Teacher
edited by
Harold H. Harris
University of MissouriSt. Louis
St. Louis, MO 63121
Figure 1. Adapting an automated kitchen gadget for making
vacuum desiccators:
(A) The Seal-a-Meal device can be used for heat sealing with
or without a vacuum. A 120-inch roll of double-walled,
heavy-plastic material is located under the shrink-wrapping
section of the appliance that contains a horizontal cutting
device.
(B) A reagent bottle with Drierite in position for shrink wrap-
ping. The entire automated shrink-wrapping process takes
about 1530 seconds, depending on the size of the bag.
(C) A bottle of isobutyl chloroformate (100 g).
(D) A 1-L bottle of dioxane that had been sealed with the kitchen
gadget.
(E) Extra roll of 120-inch double-walled, heavy-plastic material.
In the Laboratory
www.JCE.DivCHED.org Vol. 81 No. 10 October 2004 Journal of Chemical Education 1501
having been shrink wrapped, several grams of moisture indi-
cating Drierite (behind D in Figure 1) remained completely
unchanged. Similarly, no HCl was detected inside the desic-
cator after a shrink-wrapped bottle of isobutyl chloroformate
(Figure 1C), which forms HCl on contact with moisture, had
been standing in a laboratory for five months.
The author has not yet sealed materials under an inert
atmosphere such as nitrogen or argon. However, this can eas-
ily be done by flushing the air out of a bag with a stream of
inert gas immediately before vacuum sealing it.
Note
1. The costs for desiccators are: $65 for 100 mm and $181
for 250 mm glass desiccators; $67 for 230 mm and $96 for
280 mm Nalgene desiccators; $234 for 140 mm and $494 for
190 mm vacuum desiccators (Fisher Scientific Company Cata-
log 2003).
Literature Cited
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3. Hendrixson, R. R.; Whitcomb, D. R.; Palmer, R. A. J. Chem
Educ. 1976, 53, 593.
4. Thompson, H. B. J. Chem Educ. 1966, 43, 473.
5. Minnier, C.; Johnson, S.; Matusz, I. J. Chem Educ. 1976, 53,
520.
6. Sarma, B. D. J. Chem Educ. 1983, 60, 906907.