On the Subject of Glassware

Upon entering the lab, one thing you must quickly learn, whether you be a student, T.A, or something else, is how to work with glassware. Inevitably, things will be broken. But that's ok, because either your lab fee is included in your tuition and fees (which you hopefully have already paid) and you will get a moment of silence in which the class stares at you in vicarious fear (granted they hear it) and a dirty look from your supervisor (at worst), or you can hide the evidence and pretend nothing happened (not advisable, but I'll leave the option to you).

Glassware is like a fickle child; some days, you can be careless and throw it around a bit and nothing at all happens, while other times, you handle it with care and it just breaks all over you...perhaps that metaphor is not entirely fitting. At any rate, it can and will betray you. Not a question of if, but of when.

I've had my share of accidents and struggles with the heated silicon solid. My first, in the lab, was when we were starting a series of measurement experiments in 9th grade and there was a graduated cylinder sitting on the edge of a lab bench (FYI: any table located in the lab with a seat nearby is referred to as a lab bench. I have no idea why). I was not paying attention and knocked it over with my elbow. Our teacher blew a gasket, yelling at how we had no appreciation for all the things she did for us and that we didn't deserve to do the experiment in the first place and that we couldn't even behave for one...Anyway, the graduated cylinder shattered into pieces once it hit the tiled floor, and I pretended I didn't know what was going on.

I shattered two pieces of glassware in organic chemistry lab. The first was a large beaker. I had it in the sink, washing it carefully when the water and the soap made it slip just plain out of my hand. I told our TA, and he nonchalantly handed me a small broom with a dustpan. I cleaned it up, and disposed of it properly. The next time, incidentally, also occurred while I was cleaning.

The thing about organic lab is that like dissolves like - nonpolar solvents dissolve nonpolar solutes, while polar solvents dissolve polar solutes. Most of what you deal with in organic chemistry contains carbon in it - all of it should - and the molecules primarily consist of carbon to hydrogen bonds and carbon to carbon bonds. The thing about carbon-carbon and carbon-hydrogen bonds is that they are not polar; that is, the two elements don't differ enough in electronegativity (in the case of hydrogen-carbon) or don't differ at all (in the case of carbon-carbon). So most organic chemicals will not rinse off with simply soap and water - you need a nonpolar solvent like acetone (aka nail polish remover) to fully get rid of the chemicals.

Acetone is a very volatile chemical - it evaporates very quickly and becomes a vapor. That would all be fine and dandy, except that it and its vapors are extremely flammable and also can make people ill. So when you're dealing with acetone in a chemistry lab, it's usually under a fume hood (which sucks away all the fumes and keeps them from escaping into the room, while also protecting you from them). We have a fume hood in which all of our cleaning chemicals are housed, along with brushes and chemical disposal containers.

I was in this fume hood, foolishly holding three pieces of glassware in one hand over the chemical disposal bin while spraying that glassware with acetone held in a squirt bottle in my other hand. A roundbottom flask slipped from my hand and fell onto a 25 ml Erlenmeyer flask that was resting in the hood. The roundbottom held up; the Erlenmeyer did not. I cleaned up the mess with a dust pan and broom, and again, disposed of them properly.

I lost a good deal of glass capillary tubes in organic as well. These tiny things are used to obtain trace bits of chemicals in order to obtain a melting temperature with the melting temperature apparatus. I broke one inside the apparatus, though with the help of scotch tape, another capillary tube, and McGuyver-like quick thinking, I was able to remove it without damaging the equipment.

My worst experience with glassware occurred in organic chemistry lab also. We were extracting chemicals from a solution that we had already purified painstakingly through a distillation and a crystallization; now we were simply running the crystals through a filter paper-lined funnel inserted into a suction flask, which was then connected to a vacuum - the object of this was to remove all of the liquid from the crystals, so that drying the crystals, which would be the next step, wouldn't take days.

Vacuum filtration set up. Observe the location of the rubber stopper.

I inserted my vacuum tube (we had one vacuum tube, one water tube, and one blowing tube at each hood) into the suction filtration flask, and had my crystals all set up, and turned on the air. Now, there is a rubber stopper that needs to be inserted into the mouth of the suction flask in order to properly place in the funnel. I had struggled finding one that fit, the one that did fit the closest was now inserted. Well, shortly after turning on the suction, this rubber stopper began slipping into the flask.

As fast as I tried to turn off the suction, and as hard as I tried to get it out, it had happened - the rubber stopper had gotten stuck deep inside the flask, too far below the neck to reach with anything, yet not far deep enough to actually be rolling around lose. I tried using a little metal chemical scooper to get it out to no avail. Finally, in hopelessness, I told the TA, who seemed impressed with my feat, but took no time telling me brusquely to get the results from someone else - there was no yield for me to measure, so the entire experiment had failed.

Things I learned the hard way with glassware:
1. Be very very careful, especially when cleaning! Clean one piece of glassware at a time, it doesn't matter how much time you think you'll save by doing it another way. Better to take your time than make another mess you'll have to clean up anyway.
2.  Be gentle but firm with glassware. Small items like capillary tubes break very easily, but at the same time, experiments call for you to have absolute control of your glassware at all times. Find that balance and stick to it.
3. When glassware can fall and break, it will fall and break. Keep glassware away from the edges of tables, lab benches, sinks, etc., and especially with wet glassware, if a piece is prone to rolling keep it on a wire mesh or a paper towel or something similar.
4. Most glass cannot stand quick changes in temperature. Transferring a hot glass to a cold lab bench will easily shatter it. This applies to thermometers too, and it's not a pleasant sight - that red stuff looks a lot like blood, and makes you feel like a murderer.
5. Finally, breaking glass isn't the end of the world - but depending on the lab you work in, it could be the end of your career if you don't notify your supervisor immediately. Clean it up as instructed and dispose of it properly and no one will get fired - uhm - hurt.