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What is this curious instrument?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2017 1:04 pm
by markf
We were cleaning up in the deepest depths of the farthest laboratory warehouse, and we found this instrument.

No one has an idea what it is or what is it used for.
Of course, a few guesses have come up, most likely some physical analysis like maybe some sort of density? Vapor pressure? but no one knows for sure.

Maybe some of you wise old ones can shed light on the subject.

http://i.imgur.com/roEDXwP.jpg

EDIT:
I have a good guess on why we can't easily guess the nature of this instrument, the scale has no units! :cry:

Re: What is this curious instrument?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2017 1:41 pm
by Consumer Products Guy
We had (and used) one of these
Image

Re: What is this curious instrument?

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2017 1:47 pm
by lmh
I have absolutely no idea about the original-poster's instrument, but if we're in the realm of random guesses in the hopes that someone eventually comes up with the right answer, and the rest of us are allowed to look silly for wildly wrong guesses, this is my wildly-wrong guess: device for measuring permeability of membranes to liquids.

Re: What is this curious instrument?

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2017 7:56 am
by Peter Apps
lmh may be very close - Googling the company name gets this book https://books.google.co.za/books?id=JdH ... td&f=false

which lists them as having a patent that is something to do with water vapour permeability.

It also gets a cutaway motorcycle engine display https://new.liveauctioneers.com/item/42693936 with a certain stylistic resemblance to the mystery instrument, and quite a few references to various bits of lab equipment.

Peter

Re: What is this curious instrument?

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:03 pm
by Consumer Products Guy
markf wrote:
We were cleaning up in the deepest depths of the farthest laboratory warehouse, and we found this instrument.


Here: I made his picture visible.
Image

Re: What is this curious instrument?

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:56 pm
by HPLC chemist
Never used one but I think I know. The glass cylinder in the middle contained concentrate sulfuric acid. It had a 2 hole rubber stopper where 1 end was attached to a steam distillation unit. The distillate was bubbled through the acid and dewatered.

The other hole was attached to the device on the right which collected a dewatered oil that was weighed by the scale (measuring scale on right).

Thus, the analyst knows the volume he distilled and the amount of oil he collected. It was a 1930-1950's technique.

Re: What is this curious instrument?

Posted: Tue May 23, 2017 1:46 pm
by Consumer Products Guy
Consumer Products Guy wrote:
We had (and used) one of these
Image


This is a Chittick Apparatus, used to measure the volume of CO2 gas evolved from a sample, and then compared to the CO2 evolved from a sodium bicarbonate or sodium carbonate standard to determine the carbonate content of the sample. Sulfuric acid is delivered from the small buret to acidify the carbonate/bicarbonate.

Acid/water plus methyl orange dye goes in the right-hand side.