Lab Equipment Practice NAMES DRILLS - names and picture matches

Below are the names to many pieces of important lab equipment. Click to see a photo of each item. Learn what each piece is. Read the details!

beaker	graduated cylinder	evaporating dish
crucible	thermometer	Bunsen burner
crucible tongs	clay triangle	drying rack
Erlenmeyer flask	eye wash	filter paper
funnel	fire blanket	fume hood
gas jets OFF position	gas jet ON position	glass stirring rod
Hoffman Apparatus	hand broom	lab apron
plastic eye dropper	meniscus	meniscus 2
ring stand	safety goggles	scoopula
sparker	test tube brush	test tube rack
test tube holder	volumetric flask	wire mesh

Meniscus Reading... always read the bottom of the curve inside the tube.
Read to the proper measurement (estimate only one extra place).

Beakers come in a variety of sizes. This one is 600 milliliters (600 mL).
A one-liter size is equal to 1000 mL. The solution in this beaker is red.

Crucible tongs are used to pick up HOT crucibles. We use crucibles to heat up small amounts of
substances with a Bunsen Burner. They become way too hot to pick up with our hands, or even
with gloves! We'll need to practice picking them up when they're cold first.

    A real person, a Mr. Bunsen invented this device, so we ALWAYS CAPITALIZE the word Bunsen.
    This device uses natural gas to create a very hot flame. We'll use these a lot in lab. Practice will make
    them less scary to use as the semester progresses. You have to control the amounts of air (oxygen)
    that mixes with the methane (natural gas) to get the hottest (blue) flame. Yellow flames mean
    you have too little oxygen. Too much oxygen and the flame blows out!

The clay triangle allows us to heat up a crucible (which is pretty small) on a
ring stand using a Bunsen burner. Otherwise it would "fall through" the ring.
The clay can withstand very hot temperatures without melting.

   This is a white crucible and there are some lids off on the left side. The green crucible tongs are
    lifting the cup properly. This is a "practice" shot, usually we need these tongs when the crucibles
    are being heated on a clay triangle with a Bunsen burner. Note the tongs point "up".
    This is good technique.

    Drying Racks...We wash our glassware and equipment, and set it out to dry. If we leave it pointing up, |
    the glass gets stained with watermarks. By letting it dry upside down, it will be clean for the next person
    (or you if the next person washed it for you). We will use these racks for all wet glass in lab.

   Erlenmeyer Flasks have a distinctly cool shape. They remind us of mad scientists in the movies.
    These flasks are very useful to swirl (mix) solutions. They come in many sizes too. This happens to be
    a big one!

Evaporating dishes have many uses. Here's one being used on a ring stand and with heat from
a Bunsen Burner. It quickly removes water from your sample.

     The eye wash station is a safety device to help clean out your eyes if you get something in them.
     It should NEVER need to be used, because you are required by state education law, my rules, and
     generally sensible thinking to always keep goggles on your eyes. If you don't like the goggles,
     make sure you know where this is, how to work it, and hope that what ever you get in your eyes
     is not that bad for them. (this is a bad plan). Wear your goggles ALWAYS.

     Filter paper is usually used with a funnel. It catches solids that are mixed into a liquid.
    The liquid passes through the porous paper, but the solids get caught.
    It is a physical process to separate some mixtures from each other.

The fire blanket is able to wrap you up in case you catch fire, and it will help put the fire out. We hope to never need this, but make sure you know where it is in the room. Remember, stop, drop and roll.

You will see some demonstrations inside the fume hood. Ours is a little different looking, but quite similar. It can suck bad gases from inside the room to the roof. There they can mix with the air and spread out, becoming less toxic to us. Find this in the lab.

    Funnels are used to pour liquids into a small mouth container (flasks or tubes).
    Often we use filter paper with them.
     This on is glass, most of the funnels in our lab are plastic.

    Bunsen burners in our lab use natural gas (methane) from NYSEG.
    Here both jets are in the OFF position.
    When the handle is in the same direction as the metal spigot, the gas is on.
    We try to have the gas OFF or ON, but not half way.

The two spigots are in different positions. On the left the gas is ON, while on the right the gas is off.
We will try to put the gas ALL THE WAY on or off, not in the middle.

    In this hand is held a glass stirring rod.
    Glass does not react with nearly any of our chemicals, so we can stir with glass rods.
    They are near the side sink in the lab. Make sure you only use CLEAN glass to stir with.

Graduated cylinders allow us to carefully measure water or other liquids. Here are 2 different sizes.
Use the smallest cylinder you can to get the most accurate reading in lab.

     Glass breaks and needs to be swept up carefully. Broken glass can cut your skin, which is NOT good.
     If you break glass, get this broom and dustpan, sweep up your mess, and put the glass
     into the broken glass box.

One of the neatest lab pieces is this Hoffman Apparatus. We use it to separate water into hydrogen &
oxygen gases. It uses electricity (the power supply is not shown here). Way cool.

    Lab aprons will protect your clothes from chemical spills. In truth, you probably are pretty safe in lab.
    Some of the chemicals can hurt your skin, but probably not terribly. Eyes can be severely injured,
    so we always wear goggles. Clothes will protect you pretty well too.
    If you want to protect your striped shirt for any reason, lab aprons are always available.

    In lab we use alcohol centigrade thermometers.
   They're pretty accurate and much safer than using mercury devices.
    Carry them carefully, glass can break.

To read a meniscus properly you should get the cylinder at eye level.
Sometimes placing a colored piece of paper behind the curve makes it easier to read.

Eye droppers are for adding drops of solutions or water to glassware.
They can squirt so be careful. Wash them out carefully for the next use.

    Ring stands will hold our stuff up if we want to heat it, or stir it.
    You can attach rings to the pole, or clamps. We'll often put a counter weight on the base
    if we heat up water, since it's so HEAVY. We wouldn't want it to tip over!

    This is the single most important piece of lab equipment we have for you.
     Without them you are in constant danger. With them you will keep your eyes healthy.
      Don't go into the lab unprotected!

Scoopula is a funny name, but an important tool to pick up small amounts of solid chemicals.
They're metal, so we can't use them for all substances. Clean them up with warm water after each use.

    These electronic balances will tell you the mass (think weight) of your chemicals to the 100th of a gram.
    They're fairly expensive so carry them with 2 hands at all times.
    Learn to tare them, learn to turn them off so we don't waste the batteries either.

To spark your Bunsen burner we use these kinds of igniters. They create a spark, which starts the gas to
burning. They are safe to you but will easily light the gas on fire. Learn to change the flints.

Any time you use a test tube it becomes dirty. Clean it on the inside with a test tube brush.
If you push too hard, your brush will break out the bottom of the tube. Use them to brush, not scrub.

Here are several thermometers in the rack for storage. Note how they are all right side down.
Do not turn them upside down, that will allow for gaps in the red alcohol, which means they're broken.

Test tube clamps are not very practical. If you pinch too hard the tube pops out.
We'll use these only sometimes. Gloves work much better.

Test tube racks allow you to store up to 24 test tubes at one time.
Ours are green coated wire. Find them in your lab drawers.

    Volumetric flasks allow for very accurate measurements when making up solutions.
    You might see these in lab, but they will already be filled with exact concentration solutions.
    Look for the etched line in the tube to fill up to.

     Wire mesh is used on a ring stand ring when heating up a beaker with the Bunsen burner.
     Don't balance a glass beaker on the metal ring without one of these.
     They get quite hot but do not melt.