What is lab carrier?
Lab carriers, lab racks, lab totes, or lab containers help keep glassware and samples safe.
Lab carrier reduces breakage and spillage when transporting liquids, chemicals, solvents, field samples, and hazardous acids. Most styles have a sturdy handle that provides safe transport for individual test tubes or multiple bottles. Some carriers can provide refrigeration for samples that need to be kept cold. Laboratory carriers offer flexibility and durability for the safe transport of acids, bases, and other solvents.
Laboratory glassware cleaning methods with lab carrier
Glassware commonly used in the laboratory contains volumetric flasks, conical flasks, beakers, pipettes, flasks, feed bottles for LC and GC, etc. Most of the bottles can be moved using laboratory carriers. Bottles and dishes clean sign for the glass bottle and dish wall attached to the water neither gathered into droplets, nor into the flow of strands, or the formation of a uniform film of water on the inside. Cover the surface of the glass apparatus with water, if the water can be more evenly attached to the surface of the glass into a film, with neither cohesion nor flow down, then the surface of the glass apparatus is clean.
Some people will repeatedly clean the used glass bottles and dishes until the above cleaning standards, however, cleaning several times, depending on the degree of contamination, this situation is a great waste of time and energy for the experimental staff. Another part of people use a simple way to rinse off the visible adhesion of glass bottles and dishes, regardless of whether the bottles and dishes achieve cleaning standards, this case part of the bottles and dishes are not clean is very likely to cause the next is the experimental error or even the failure of the experiment.
Laboratory bottle carriers
The following cleaning agents are currently used in the laboratory.
A. Chromic acid washing solution. Chromium has carcinogenic effects, so the preparation and use of washing solution should be extremely careful, two commonly used preparation methods are as follows.
a. Take 100mL of industrial concentrated sulfuric acid and place it in a beaker, heat it carefully, then slowly add 5g of potassium dichromate powder, stir while adding, wait for all of it to dissolve and cool slowly, then store it in a fine mouth bottle with a ground glass stopper.
b. Weigh 5g of potassium dichromate powder, place in a 250mL beaker, add 5mL of water to dissolve it, then slowly add 100mL of concentrated sulfuric acid, the solution temperature will reach 80 ℃, and then stored in a mill-mouth glass bottle after it cools.
B. Industrial concentrated hydrochloric acid can wash away scale or certain inorganic salt precipitates.
C. 5% oxalic acid solution: acidified with several drops of sulfuric acid, can wash away the traces of potassium permanganate.
D. 5% to 10% trisodium phosphate (Na3PO4-12H2O) solution: can wash oil stains.
E. 30% nitric acid solution: washing carbon dioxide meter and micro-dropper.
F. 5% ~ 10% disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA-Na2) solution: heated and boiled to elute the white precipitates on the inner wall of the glass instrument.
G. Urea washing solution: a good solvent for protein, suitable for washing containers that have held protein preparations and blood samples.
H. Organic solvents: such as acetone, ether, ethanol, etc. can be used to elute grease, fat-soluble dye stains, etc., and xylene can elute the dirt of paint.
I. Ethanol solution of potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide solution containing potassium permanganate: these are two strong alkaline washing solutions, the aggressiveness of glass instruments, can remove the inner wall of the container dirt, washing time should not be too long, should be used carefully and cautiously (such washing solution is also commonly used to clean the LC, GC injection bottle).
The following are the common ways of cleaning glassware in the laboratory.
The degree of automation is divided as follows.
a. Manual cleaning.
b. Automatic laboratory bottle washing machine cleaning.
c. Manual immersion + ultrasonic cleaning.
The cleaning process is divided as follows.
a. In general, glass instruments are first rinsed with tap water, then scrubbed with conventional detergent, then rinsed with tap water, and finally rinsed with water three times.
b. Precision or difficult-to-brush vessels (pipettes, conical flasks, volumetric flasks, etc.) are first rinsed with tap water, drained, soaked in the washing solution, then rinsed with tap water, then rinsed with pure water.
c. A clean glassware should not be stained with oil, not hanging water beads, otherwise it should be re-washed until it meets the requirements.
d. Automatic bottle washing machine cleaning. The standard cleaning of glassware is as follows: pre-washing cold water cleaning, 60℃ water temperature alkaline cleaning agent cleaning, cleaning with acidic cleaning agent neutralization, softening water cleaning, pure water cleaning, and pure water rinsing (up to 95℃). So far, the cleaning is all over.
e. The cleaning procedure of the bottle washer is very important, please make sure to follow the reference procedure given by the manufacturer. The water temperature, the amount of water circulation, the amount of cleaning agent, and the number of rinsing times are all very demanding on the cleanliness index of the vessels.
Comparison table of common cleaning methods of laboratory glassware
| Manual cleaning | Ultrasonic cleaning | Laboratory bottle washer cleaning |
| Introduction | Currently, the main cleaning method relies on manual or handheld tools for brushing or cleaning. | Based on the role of ultrasonic cavitation, when the ultrasonic wave in the formation of bubbles after the sudden rupture (closed) the moment can generate more than 1000 atmospheric pressure, this continuous generation of instantaneous high-pressure strong impact on the surface of the object so that the object surface and crevices in the dirt quickly peeled off, to achieve the purpose of object surface cleaning and purification. | The cleaning solution is driven into the jet arm and jet pipe under the pressure of the circulating pump, and the pressurized circulating water drives the rotation of the jet arm to complete the cleaning of the container. Placed in the cleaning chamber, the automatic machine is used to complete the cleaning treatment of the container. In general, it needs to add an auxiliary cleaning agent for cleaning, which can complete the steps of pre-washing - cleaning - rinsing - neutralizing - rinsing - drying. The cleaning process can be recorded, and traceable and the cleaning process can be verified. |
| Advantage | Universal cleaning method with high recognition and good adaptability. It can adapt to all kinds of occasions with different levels of contamination and different pollutants. | Ultrasonic cleaning is effective and especially suitable for appliances with complex surfaces and fine lumen. The aluminum foil test cavitation creates a powerful force that effectively strips away dirt. | Laboratory washing machine ensures the consistency of cleaning quality and high cleanliness, cleaning effect so that the experimental results are guaranteed, and then encountered reproducibility problems can be found in other areas of the cause, greatly improving efficiency. The current laboratory equipment is equipped with automatic sampling devices, data processing systems, etc., the same laboratory washing machine is also in line with the requirements of laboratory modernization and automation, and the cleaning process can be recorded, traceable cleaning conditions, but also more in line with the laboratory management norms. In addition, laboratory washing machines can clean complex vessels, such as pipettes, gas collection bottles, liquid phase vials, etc., on the one hand, save labor costs, but also solve the problem of high acid contamination and personnel injury. |
| Disadvantage | Subjective factors have a large impact, the quality is difficult to achieve uniformity and stability; does not have recordable, traceable, and poorly verifiable; some occasions, such as large container specifications, the number of items to be cleaned, manual cleaning labor intensity, bringing instability to quality control. | The cavitation effect hurts the apparatus, thus affecting the precision of experimental data and the service life of the apparatus, and the noise generated by ultrasonic waves during continuous work will also cause adverse reactions to the human body. | High price. |
| Risk of damage to utensils | High | High | Low |
| Risk of scratching | High | Low | Low |
| Risk of corrosion burns | High | Low | Low |
| Risk of infection | High | Low | Low |
| Standardization of processes | No | No | Yes |
| Program test | No | Yes | Yes |
Through the comparison table above, it is easy to see that manual cleaning has not been able to meet the increasing experimental requirements, mechanical cleaning will slowly take over, and in mechanical cleaning, ultrasonic cleaning relative to laboratory washing machine cleaning, the function is too single, the number of cleaning is limited, and there is a certain degree of risk, so that laboratory washing machine with its efficient and fast, safe and reliable performance to get more laboratory operators, and thus widely used in the laboratory.
How to buy lab carrier?
ANTITECK provide lab equipment, lab consumable, manufacturing equipment in life sciences sector. If you are interested in our lab carrier or have any questions, please write an e-mail to info@antiteck.com, we will reply to you as soon as possible.
