[xiphius]

Hello all,

I recently acquired a rather interesting piece of glassware from an old lab which was shutting down in our area. When I grabbed it, I thought that it was a Kipp generator, but now I have my doubts. I have never seen anything else quite like it and was wondering if perhaps any of you could enlighten me as to its true purpose. As seen in the attached picture, it has a $24/40 ground glass connector at the bottom and 3 glass bulbs stacked. Each successive bulb is slightly smaller than the lower one. This opens into a wide neck with an attached gas effluent tube. It is stamped "scientific glass apparatus co." and a search of other glass companies did not turn up any similar pieces. If it is a Kipp generator, it seems odd that the secondary bulb would contain no baffle to keep the solid packing inside. Next I thought it may be some form of refluxing device; however it seems ill-suited to this purpose as well. If any of you know what it is or have any idea as to its intended purpose, I would greatly appreciate the help in identifying it and look forward to the chance to learn about this antique piece of glassware.

[OC pro]

You have actually aquired an air-condenser. Not very effective, only usable for high-boiling substances (above 150°C). Can be made bit more effective by wrapping with water-soaked paper.
A classic one...

[BobfromNC]

I agree that this looks like an air condenser/reflux column of sorts.    I use long Vigreux columns for the same use sometimes when refluxing a reaction overnight when I am worried that the water pressure might drop.  This works best when you have a good temperature/power controller to keep the reaction only barely at the reflux temperature.  Otherwise it cannot cool the solvent enough and the reaction can boil dry.   But I have used them with solvents like EtOH and THF even, not just DMF or other high BP solvents.

Bob

[xiphius]

Thank you all. Not very useful in what I do, but will still make a nice desk ornament and at least I know what this antique is for now. I must admit, it has a certain degree of charm about it. By the way Bob, very informative, I would never have thought to use a vigreux column in such a fashion, guess I'm just more of an allihn condenser kind of guy - very nice!