Hi all,

I am late in sharing a significant innovation one of our students, Nick Ferreri, made last year that will be of interest to this group. I presented safety training to a group students who were planning to use HF as an etchant. Nick took it upon himself to research alternatives to HF and developed a method that eliminated HF use from his preparation method for titanium samples. The alternative method uses ethylene glycol, ethanol, sodium chloride, and a low voltage charge. Please note that concentrated acids and high voltage are not used in this etch method, completely avoiding the major hazards historically associated with titanium metal preparation for electron microscopy. And, the resulting etch is better than if the sample had been etched with HF. Please share this with colleagues who may use HF to etch titanium and titanium alloys.

The published article describing the method is here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1044580320303363

Thanks!

Andy

Andy Glode, MS, CIH

Interim Director

Office of Environmental Health and Safety

University of New Hampshire

O: 603-862-5038; C: 603-534-9872

https://www.unh.edu/research/environmental-health-and-safety