General Laboratory Glassware

A beaker is a simple container for stirring, mixing and heating liquids commonly used in many laboratories. Beakers are generally cylindrical in shape, 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 Buchner flask, also known as a vacuum flask, filter flask, or side-arm flask, is a thick-walled Erlenmeyer flask with a short glass tube and hose barb protruding about an inch from its neck. The short tube and hose barb effectively acts as an adapter over which the end of a thick-walled flexible hose (tubing) can be fitted to form a connection to the flask. The other end of the hose can be connected to source of vacuum such as an aspirator, vacuum pump, or house vacuum.

The thick wall of the Buchner flask provides it the strength to withstand the pressure difference while holding a vacuum inside. It is primarily used together with a Buchner funnel fitted through a drilled rubber bung at the neck on top of the flask for filtration of samples. The Buchner funnel holds the sample isolated from the suction by a layer of filter paper. During filtration, the filtrate enters and is held by the flask while the residue remains on the filter paper in the funnel.

The Buchner flask can also be used as a vacuum trap in a vacuum line to ensure that no fluids are carried over from the aspirator or vacuum pump to the evacuated apparatus or vice versa.

A graduated cylinder, measuring cylinder or graduate is a piece of laboratory equipment used to accurately measure the volume of a liquid. Water displacement can be used to find out the volume of a solid. Graduated cylinders are generally more accurate and precise for this purpose than flasks and beakers. A traditional cylinder is usually narrow and high (so as to increase the accuracy of volume measurement) and has a spout" for easy pouring from the measured liquid. Certain types of cylinders have ground glass joints instead of a "spout", so that they can be closed with a stopper or connect directly with other elements of a manifold; they are also known as mixing cylinders. A graduated cylinder is meant to be read with the surface of the liquid at eye level, where the center of the meniscus shows the measurement line. Typically the accuracy of the graduated cylinder is +/-0.05 ml. The measuring cylinder is normally and most commonly used in laboratories.

A volumetric flask is a piece of laboratory glassware, a type of laboratory flask, used in analytical chemistry for the preparation of solutions. It consists of a flat bottomed bulb with a long neck, usually fitted with a stopper. The stopper is normally made in a chemically resistant plastic such as polypropylene rather than glass. The neck has a single ring graduation mark and a label. The glass or plastic is generally colorless but may be amber colored for handling light sensitive compounds such as silver nitrate or vitamin A.

An Erlenmeyer also known as a conical flask is a widely used type of laboratory flask which features a flat bottom, a conical body, and a cylindrical neck.  The Erlenmeyer is usually marked on the side (graduated) to indicate the approximate volume of contents, and has a spot of ground glass or enamel where it can be labeled with a pencil. It differs from the beaker in its tapered body and narrow neck. The opening usually has a slight rounded lip so that the Erlenmeyer can be easily stoppard using a piece of cotton wool, rubber bung or similar. Alternatively, the neck may be fitted with a female ground glass joint to accept a glass stopper. The conical shape allows the contents to be swirled or stirred during an experiment, either by hand or by a shaker; the narrow neck keeps the contents from spilling out. The small neck reduces evaporative losses compared to a beaker, while the flat bottom of the conical flask makes it unlikely to tip over and spill.

Laboratory funnels are funnels that have been made for use in the chemical laboratory. There are many different kinds of funnels that have been adapted for these specialized applications. Filter funnels, thistle funnels (shaped like thistle flowers) and dropping funnels; which have stopcocks to allow the fluids to be added to a flask slowly. For solids, a powder funnel with a wide and short stem is more appropriate as it does not clog easily.

When used with filter paper, filter funnels, Buchner & Hirsch funnels can be used to remove fine particles from a liquid in a process called filtration. For more demanding applications, the filter paper in the latter two may be replaced with a sintered glass frit.

It is a type of laboratory glassware used to transfer fluids. They are fitted with a stopcock which allows the flow of to be controlled. There are many different kinds of funnels that have been adapted for these specialized applications.  pear shaped funnels, cylindrical funnels & globe shaped funnels. All these funnels are fitted with stopcocks made from glass or screw thread PTFE rotaflo stopcock or PTFE plug stopcock (body is of glass but the plug is of PTFE).