[prizmordial]

Does anyone know of aqueous process for cleaning a ruthenium surface?  What is the recommended drying process?

Thanks

[Fleaker]

This is not a specific query.

What do you want to remove from the surface? Grease? Oxides? Other metal contaminates?
If grease, use proper solvent mix to remove the grease (basically process of elimination: try MeOH, try acetone, try hexanes, try ether, try DCM etc. until something works).

Other metal contaminates are best removed by whatever solubilizes them but not the Ru. Generally speaking, that's just about any single mineral acid.

If oxides, obtain a quartz tube and make provisions for heating the material in a hydrogen atmosphere. CO also works so long as the temperature is just right. You could, assuming this is a bulk chunk of Ru, heat the material up (in a fume cupboard!!) to a good orange heat in a quartz boat, providing you use a reducing hydrogen flame. Then you can cool it under hydrogen gas. If this is Ru sponge or black, cooling under H2 gas must be avoided in any case, as the metal will absorb H2 and can cause a spontaneous fire even at room temperature. That has been my experience, you are warned.

Or do you want to etch the surface to reveal crystalline patterns?
To answer that, I would have to consult my old laboratory books to see what I used.

If you just want to get it really clean, give it a boil in aqua regia.

If you want to dissolve it, be prepared to deal with RuO4, which I can tell you from personal experience, is not particularly nice. I can tell you several methods for dissolving Ru sponge--alkaline persulfate is the best in my opinion.

[prizmordial]

Hi Fleaker
Thanks for the response.   I am interested in removing particles from the Ruthenium surface.  These could be ruthenium particles as well.  I am not interested in etching the surface.

thanks