Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window panes, tableware, and optics. Some common objects made of glass are named after the material, e.g. "glass", "glasses", "magnifying glass".
A Florence flask/boiling flask is a type of flask used as an item of laboratory glassware and is named after the city Florence. It is used as a container to hold liquids. A Florence flask has a round body, a long neck, and often a flat bottom. It is designed for uniform heating, boiling, distillation and ease of swirling; it is produced in a number of different glass thicknesses to stand different types of use. They are often made of borosilicate glass for heat and chemical resistance. Traditional Florence flasks typically do not have a ground glass joint on their rather longer necks, but typically have a slight lip or flange around the tip of the neck. The common volume for a Florence flask is 1 litre.
A gas syringe is a piece of laboratory glassware used to insert or withdraw a volume of a gas from a closed system, or to measure the volume of gas evolved from a chemical reaction. A gas syringe can also be used to measure and dispense liquids, especially where these liquids need to be kept free from air.
Borosilicate glass is a type of glass with silica and boron trioxide as the main glass-forming constituents. Borosilicate glasses are known for having very low coefficients of thermal expansion, making them more resistant to thermal shock than any other common glass. Such glass is subjected to less thermal stress and can withstand temperature differentials without fracturing of about 165 °C (300 °F). It is commonly used for the construction of reagent bottles and flasks, as well as lighting, electronics, and cookware. For many other applications, soda-lime glass is more common.
Laboratory flasks are vessels or containers that fall into the category of laboratory equipment known as glassware. In laboratory and other scientific settings, they are usually referred to simply as flasks. Flasks come in a number of shapes and a wide range of sizes, but a common distinguishing aspect in their shapes is a wider vessel "body" and one narrower tubular sections at the top called necks which have an opening at the top. Laboratory flask sizes are specified by the volume they can hold, typically in metric units such as milliliters or liters. Laboratory flasks have traditionally been made of glass, but can also be made of plastic.
Glass tubes are mainly cylindrical hollow-wares. Their special shape combined with the huge variety of glass types, allows the use of glass tubing in many applications. For example, laboratory glassware, lighting applications, solar thermal systems and pharmaceutical packaging to name the largest.
A hermetic seal is any type of sealing that makes a given object airtight. The term originally applied to airtight glass containers, but as technology advanced it applied to a larger category of materials, including rubber and plastics. Hermetic seals are essential to the correct and safe functionality of many electronic and healthcare products. Used technically, it is stated in conjunction with a specific test method and conditions of use. Colloquially, the exact requirements of such a seal varies with the application.
Soda–lime glass, also called soda–lime–silica glass, is the transparent glass, used for windowpanes and glass containers for beverages, food, and some commodity items. It is the most prevelant type of glass made. Some glass bakeware is made of soda-lime glass, as opposed to the more common borosilicate glass. Soda–lime glass accounts for about 90% of manufactured glass.
In laboratory equipment, a beaker is generally a cylindrical container with a flat bottom. Most also have a small spout to aid pouring, as shown in the picture. Beakers are available in a wide range of sizes, from one milliliter up to several liters. A beaker is distinguished from a flask by having straight rather than sloping sides. The exception to this definition is a slightly conical-sided beaker called a Philips beaker. The beaker shape in general drinkware is similar.
Wet chemistry is a form of analytical chemistry that uses classical methods such as observation to analyze materials. The term wet chemistry is used as most analytical work is done in the liquid phase. Wet chemistry is also known as bench chemistry, since many tests are performed at lab benches.
Round-bottom flasks are types of flasks having spherical bottoms used as laboratory glassware, mostly for chemical or biochemical work. They are typically made of glass for chemical inertness; and in modern days, they are usually made of heat-resistant borosilicate glass. There is at least one tubular section known as the neck with an opening at the tip. Two- or three-necked flasks are common as well. Round bottom flasks come in many sizes, from 5 mL to 20 L, with the sizes usually inscribed on the glass. In pilot plants even larger flasks are encountered.
The Schlenk line is a commonly used chemistry apparatus developed by Wilhelm Schlenk. It consists of a dual manifold with several ports. One manifold is connected to a source of purified inert gas, while the other is connected to a vacuum pump. The inert-gas line is vented through an oil bubbler, while solvent vapors and gaseous reaction products are prevented from contaminating the vacuum pump by a liquid-nitrogen or dry-ice/acetone cold trap. Special stopcocks or Teflon taps allow vacuum or inert gas to be selected without the need for placing the sample on a separate line.
A Schlenk flask, or Schlenk tube, is a reaction vessel typically used in air-sensitive chemistry, invented by Wilhelm Schlenk. It has a side arm fitted with a PTFE or ground glass stopcock, which allows the vessel to be evacuated or filled with gases. These flasks are often connected to Schlenk lines, which allow both operations to be done easily.
Ground glass joints are used in laboratories to quickly and easily fit leak-tight apparatus together from interchangeable commonly available parts. For example, a round bottom flask, Liebig condenser, and oil bubbler with ground glass joints may be rapidly fitted together to reflux a reaction mixture. This is a large improvement compared with older methods of custom-made glassware, which was time-consuming and expensive, or the use of less chemical resistant and heat resistant corks or rubber bungs and glass tubes as joints, which took time to prepare as well.
An eye dropper, also called Pasteur pipette or simply dropper, is a device used to transfer small quantities of liquids. They are used in the laboratory and also to dispense small amounts of liquid medicines. A very common use was to dispense eye drops into the eye. The commonly recognized form is a glass tube tapered to a narrow point and fitted with a rubber bulb at the top, although many styles of both plastic and glass droppers exist. The combination of the pipette and rubber bulb has also been referred to as a teat pipette. The Pasteur pipette name is from the French scientist Louis Pasteur, who used a variant of them extensively during his research. In the past, there was no equipment to transfer a chemical solution without exposing it to the external environment. The hygiene and purity of chemical compounds is necessary for the expected result of each experiment. The eye dropper, both glass and plastic types, can be sterilized and plugged with a rubber bulb at the open end of the pipette preventing any contamination from the atmosphere. Generally, they are considered cheap enough to be disposable, however, so long as the glass point is not chipped, the eye dropper may be washed and reused indefinitely.
Air-free techniques refer to a range of manipulations in the chemistry laboratory for the handling of compounds that are air-sensitive. These techniques prevent the compounds from reacting with components of air, usually water and oxygen; less commonly carbon dioxide and nitrogen. A common theme among these techniques is the use of a fine (100–10−3 Torr) or high (10−3–10−6 Torr) vacuum to remove air, and the use of an inert gas: preferably argon, but often nitrogen.
A volumetric pipette, bulb pipette, or belly pipette allows extremely accurate measurement of the volume of a solution. It is calibrated to deliver accurately a fixed volume of liquid.
Cannula transfer or cannulation is a set of air-free techniques used with a Schlenk line, in transferring liquid or solution samples between reaction vessels via cannulae, avoiding atmospheric contamination. While the syringes are not the same as cannulae, the techniques remain relevant.
Reagent bottles, also known as media bottles or graduated bottles, are containers made of glass, plastic, borosilicate or related substances, and topped by special caps or stoppers. They are intended to contain chemicals in liquid or powder form for laboratories and stored in cabinets or on shelves. Some reagent bottles are tinted amber (actinic), brown or red to protect light-sensitive chemical compounds from visible light, ultraviolet and infrared radiation which may alter them; other bottles are tinted blue or uranium green for decorative purposes -mostly vintage apothecary sets, from centuries in which a doctor or apothecary was a prominent figure. The bottles are called "graduated" when they have marks on the sides indicating the approximate amount of liquid at a given level within the container. A reagent bottle is a type of laboratory glassware. The term "reagent" refers to a substance that is part of a chemical reaction, and "media" is the plural form of "medium" which refers to the liquid or gas which a reaction happens within, or is a processing chemical tool such as a flux.
An evaporating dish is a piece of laboratory glassware used for the evaporation of solutions and supernatant liquids, and sometimes to their melting point. Evaporating dishes are used to evaporate excess solvents – most commonly water – to produce a concentrated solution or a solid precipitate of the dissolved substance.
An all-glass check valve.
An Erlenmeyer and a filtering flask. Note the barbed sidearm on the filtering flask.
A glass adapter with a hose barb on the left and a ground glass connector on the right.
A taper joint stopper with PTFE sealing ring. Note the optical transparency of the narrow sealing ring pressured by glass joint on the right.
A thread T-bore plug valve used as a side arm on a Schlenk flask.
A common straight bore glass stopcock attached with a plastic plug retainer in the side arm of a Schlenk flask.
