Laboratory Safety & Lab Efficiency

Lab equipment is expensive so it’s important to take care of it by keeping it clean so that it functions optimally for as long as possible. It’s also important to keep it clean to prevent cross-contamination when performing different experiments. Clean and uncontaminated equipment provides more accurate, reliable, and consistent data. That’s why every lab’s inventory should consist of wash bottles.

What Is A Wash Bottle?

A wash bottle is just as its name indicates. It’s a flexible bottle with a bent tube that is inserted through its stopper or cap. The tube is used to direct a stream of water onto something that needs to be rinsed or washed.

What Is A Wash Bottle In A Laboratory?

Put that same bottle into a lab and it becomes a squeezable bottle with a long-stemmed nozzle used to rinse or wash pieces of glassware or plasticware found in a lab. This glassware or plasticware includes beakers, flasks, bottles, test tubes, jars, watch glasses, Petri dishes, graduated cylinders, burettes, pipettes, microscope slides, and stirring rods.

What is a Laboratory Wash Bottle used for?

While wash bottles are mainly used to wash or rinse various pieces of glassware or plasticware in the laboratory, they also have less frequent uses such as precisely filling volumetric flasks.

Wash bottles can also be filled and used as storage with numerous solvents. Some of these solvents typically include methanol, isopropyl alcohol, ethanol, and acetone. If using them in this way, it’s extremely important to color-code each bottle for simple content identification. The bottles usually come with pre-printed chemical names, formulas, Chemical Abstract Service numbers, a NFPA warning diamond, and color-coded lids to provide easy identification and to meet safety compliance.

Reagents with high vapor pressure can also be used in wash bottles. However, these bottles must have unique valves with vents that prevent pressure build-up and eliminate dangerous chemical drips and leaks.

What Is A Wash Bottle Made of?

A wash bottle is made out of plastic with a screw-top lid. The plastic is designed to be flexible so that the bottle can be squeezed by hand to create pressure that forces the liquid in the bottle to flow through the plastic tube and out, either as a single drop or a narrow stream, onto the surface being cleaned. The plastic should also be designed to resist thermal and chemically-induced expansions.

The bottles are made with either wide mouths for easy filling or narrow mouths. The spouts are either standard or integrated. The bottles are either vented for high vapor pressure or non-vented. There are wide-mouthed bottles with a standard spout, wide-mouthed bottles with an integrated spout, and wide-mouthed bottles with a vented spout. There are also narrow-mouthed bottles with a standard spout and narrow-mouthed bottles with an integrated spout.

The lid has a plastic tube inserted into it with the exposed end bent. The plastic tube or long-stemmed nozzle directs the even stream of water onto the surface being cleaned.

Wash bottles are either opaque, translucent, or transparent and have pre-printed measurements on them. The measurements are usually in milliliters and liters but sometimes are in ounces.

Where To Buy A Wash Bottle

Lab Pro offers a wide assortment of wash bottles. Their bottles are made from low-density polyethylene which makes the bottles themselves very malleable and easy to squeeze. The LDPE provides excellent resistance to acids, alcohols, bases, and esters.

The bottles have flexible nozzles that can be pointed in any direction. This makes it easier to wash or rinse lab equipment from any angle and hard-to-reach areas.

The bottles come in all kinds of sizes holding various capacities. Some of the bottles that come in milliliters include 125 ml, 250 ml, 500 ml, and 1000 ml. There are also bottles that come in ounces and these include 4 oz., 8 oz., 16 oz., and 32 oz.

Lab Pro also offers bottle-wash liquids. Some of these include isopropyl alcohol, acetone, deionized water, methanol, and ethanol.

In Summary

Wash bottles are a crucial tool needed in every lab to keep equipment clean so that the data is accurate and reliable and not contaminated by unwanted substances. The plastic bottle with a plastic tube and screw-top lid is designed to be flexible so that it can be squeezed to create an even stream of water onto a surface that needs to be washed or rinsed.

Wash bottles can be used to disinfect a lab countertop with bleach, rinse and wash reusable glass and plastic equipment, clean electrodes, work with harsh chemicals, or bring reagents to volume.

Lab Pro offers a large variety of wash bottles for all types of applications. For over 40 years, Lab Pro Inc. has been committed to delivering the highest quality chemicals, lab equipment, distance learning kits, lab supplies, and cleanroom PPE apparel to medical device companies and laboratories worldwide. To learn more, visit the biggest Lab Supply showroom in California, or contact us online or at 888-452-2776.