For those of you interested in storing drugs for a while, consider the following:

Helium

You can simply attach a hose and jam a long pipette in the end. Perhaps even add a zip tie or two.

Inert gas can be used to protect other compounds from oxygen: such as psilocin/LSD/DMT. It could also be used to remove dissolved oxygen and nitrogen from solvents.

-Regards, 1ce

Nice find.

Something to keep in mind for anyone using Helium is that it's much lighter than air. It will very quickly float out of an uncapped vial or container, so a bit more careful technique might be needed when filling vials with Helium than with heavier inert gasses.

Indeed, we were discussing this earlier in Chat. While it's not cost effective, argon would be a better choice as it will displace the oxygen completely.

Using helium to displace most of the oxygen wouldn't indefinitely prevent oxidation, but it would certainly decrease it significantly. Also, even "air tight" containers are not truly air tight, even when vacuum sealed. You should repeat the procedure every few months to ensure minimal oxygen exposure.

i believe this one comes with a 'cracker/opener' and four cartridges for 30$

15$/4

ALSO!

Argon glows a beautiful violet color when electricity is supplied.

I don't know about using helium. It is so incredibly lightweight that any attempt to evacuate a vessel using it would have less than ideal results.

Nitrogen is readily used in food preservation efforts and tanks of it would be less than Argon I would think.

Those mini argon bottles for wine are pretty neat. I should be easy to order/find locally. The advantage of helium is that it is very easily obtainable in the party supply of most stores.

Despite the fact helium is quite light, I don't see how it would be extremely difficult to gas out a container with it.

i read somewhere argon/helium is often used as a preservative, and Helium glows too!

So my bag of materials will be glowing, neat !!!






PS: don't worry, I know it's an electric current doing the glow thingy

How about some drops of liquid butane sprayed from an upside-down lighter refill canister into the preservation container and letting it evaporate and fill the container? Butane, and especially cold butane, is heavier than air, like argon. It is not inert in the sense that it is capable of being oxidized itself (and quite vigorously so) but it will not react with what is to be preserved. Butane is super easy to source almost anywhere in the form of lighter refill cans or even some types of portable mini stove fuel cans.

Obviously, the flammability of butane is a cause for concern, but if used in small quantities with small preservation containers and sensible precautions are used, the practical danger is quite low. Butane has been used as a propellant gas in all kinds of spray cans for a long time, being sprayed about in unventilated rooms by "unqualified personnel", without a huge amount of accidents and fireballs littering the evening news.

Two other 'inert' gases (for the practical purpose envisioned) that come in convenient cartridges are carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Both are heavier than air.

Find a friend with a mig welder, or buy your own and have the bonus of amusing your friends by building catapults from old beds and constructing really redneck looking snow shovels.
A standard shielding gas for a wire feed welder is composed of nitrogen and argon.

I've got an N2 generator I picked up a while back. Do these welders generate their own gas or is it bottle supply?

Bottle supply, unfortunately.