Science is the branch of knowledge that involves many sub branches. One of them involves chemistry which is concerned with the substances and the investigation of their properties and reactions, and the use of such reactions to form new substances. The study of chemistry practically is incomplete without experimenting and studying in a lab.
That’s where the role of lab equipment comes in. Several types of such lab equipment are required for study and research. Lab equipment is primarily used to carry out experiments from simple to complex apparatus based on its uses.
In this article, we will talk about the types of lab equipment with their names and explain their uses.
- Safety Googles and Lab Coat.
Before entering the laboratory and beginning with the lab work. Safety is of the highest importance. Avoiding basic safety rules can put you or other’s safety in danger. Safety goggles and lab coats are important in all chemistry labs. Not wearing might cause some spillage to your eyes causing permanent eye damage or splashes to your clothes leading to burns and the safety equipment help in avoiding that to happen. Also, make sure to never wear open-toed shoes or sandals in the lab.
- Beaker.
A beaker is a common cylindrical container with a flat base with spouts for pouring made of borosilicate glass used to hold, heat and mix substances and chemicals. Borosilicate glass offers high heat tolerance to the Beaker. They are available in many sizes depending upon the volume of content required to conduct experiments. Flat rims ensure that it can be covered with a petri dish or a watch glass to prevent any spillage.
- Conical flasks
Conical Flask is also known as Erlenmeyer Flasks named after its inventor. They have a cone-like shape with a flat base and a narrow neck for easy mixing and swirling without risk of spilling with marks and measurements. Such features similarly make the flask suitable for boiling liquids, narrow neck helps in the use of a rubber stopper.
- Test tubes
Test tubes are very common and basic lab equipment consisting of a finger-like length of the glass and open at the top and rounded at the bottom. They are commonly used in mixing, quality analysis, and comparison. They can also be easily clamped with a rubber stopper.
- Watch glass
Another common lab equipment with a glass concave bottom used for hold solids, evaporate liquids, and heating of small quantity of substances.
- Crucible
Also known as a mortar and pestle made of clay/Porcelain used in grinding and mixing of solids, crystals holding liquids, and heating substances.
- Funnels
Funnels are essential lab apparatus with a conical shape and with long and short bottom stem used to safely deliver the content from one beaker to another glass vessel they are also used as a filter and dropper.
A type of lab glassware with a round flask with a long neck and flat bottom. It is used to measure an exact volume of liquid measurements to hold a precise volume of liquids used to prepare standard solutions and for accurate dilutions. On what amount of solution you want to prepare, Available in different sizes you can use a 50ml, 125ml, 250ml, 500ml, or 1000ml volumetric flask.
- Dropper
Droppers are small glass tubes with a narrow tip and a rubber bulb suck up to hold air and accurately deliver the liquid contents in the form of drops.
- Pipette
Often used as a media dispenser. Pipettes come in several designs for various purposes with differing levels of accuracy and precision from a single piece glass pipette.
- Burette
An elongated glass tube with a conical bottom and a knob. This simple piece of chem lab equipment is used to deliver known volumes of a substance. It is often used during titrations. It is a long graduated tube with a stopcock on at the lower end. The most common burettes are 50ml, 25 ml, and 10ml varieties.
- Tongs and Clamps
When working in a lab environment, you often have to deal with chemicals, heat, and other hazardous substances. Tongs and clamps can be used in grabbing things that cannot be touched by bare hand for being too hot, specially made to hold beakers, others to hold test tubes, etc.
- Spatula and Scoopula
The spatula is a flat thin, flexible stainless steel blade and Scoopula are scoop utensil used primarily in chemistry lab settings. To transfer solids, to a weigh paper for weighing, to a coverslip to measure melting point or a graduated cylinder, or to a watch glass from a flask or beaker through scraping.
A mercury bulb lab thermometer commonly used in a lab setup. They are used to measure the temperature of substances and have a high degree of precision.
- Measuring Cylinder
A measuring cylinder or mixing cylinder is a common piece of laboratory equipment used to measure the volume of a liquid. It has a narrow cylindrical shape. Each marked line on the graduated cylinder represents the amount of liquid that has been measured.
- Bunsen Burner
Bunsen burner, named after Robert Bunsen, is a heating laboratory equipment that produces a single open gas flame, which is used for heating, sterilization, and combustion. The gas can be natural gas (which is mainly methane) or a liquefied petroleum gas, such as propane, butane, or a mixture of both.
- Balances
In a lab setup, there are 2 different types of balance that can be used a spring balance or a modern electronic weigh balance. Often used to measure the weight of contents in a lab accurately. It is important not to move a balance because they have been calibrated for the exact position they are in for accurate measurement.
Now that you are aware of different types of apparatus used in labs. Feel free to study and know more about chemistry and different sciences while also keeping a safe lab practice and study in mind.
