[nf405]

I've been making iron oxide nanoparticles from iron pentacarbonyl in organic solvents at high temperatures and all my glasswear has turned orange/brown! Any one have any idea of how to clean this I've tried washing it with toluene and a base bath and this doesn't seem to work... any ideas?

[nf405]

Hi,

just incase anyone ia interested my latest cleaning recipe for this is base bath followed by dilute acid bath, water and washing up liquid, bleach then water and washing up liquid again, distilled water then acetone. -Seems to work ok

[gr1gn4rd]

A simpler method might be preparing aqua regia (HCl 3:1 HNO3) and letting it sit in the flask overnight. Neutralize the solution and wash with distilled water and acetone. Don't do it unless you have some sort of fume hood or respirator, though.

[zolarpwr]

Aqua regia will definitely work, but conc HCl by itself should also do the trick. Dilute (not conc) nitric acid will also work, albeit more slowly.

[jeffrey.struss]

Aqua regia is awesome, it makes quick work of cleaning up CdSe nanocrystals which have gotten into little crevices and what not in labware.