Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Drying glassware

arkoma - 28-6-2014 at 10:32

Having acquired my very first ground glass RBF's (thank you, Santa) I've figured out toclean them, but drying the insides is a BITCH. I've been shoving in (huge amounts) of paper towels and pulling them out with a hook. Not very efficient :(

Suggestions?

"Tried and true" methods?

kavu - 28-6-2014 at 10:38

Ethanol or acetone rinse after water will help, this is the usual method in most uni labs for all glassware.

[Edited on 28-6-2014 by kavu]

Mailinmypocket - 28-6-2014 at 10:39

Distilled water rinse and dry in an oven! Paper towels leave tons of fibers everywhere in them. If you want really clean you can do acetone rinses or methanol... Depends on what you are cleaning and how dry the glass needs to be. This is discussed in detail in some threads but I can't find them at the moment on my phone.

arkoma - 28-6-2014 at 10:46

Thanx guys!

I found "cleaning" threads. I have been using the absolutely CHEAPEST paper towels. My Uncle Steve does bodywork, and one winter thought I wanted to learn *facepalm*. One gem of knowledge I did take away from that though was that El Cheapo towels leave the least lint.

alexleyenda - 28-6-2014 at 13:12

Quote: Originally posted by Mailinmypocket  
Distilled water rinse and dry in an oven! If you want really clean you can do acetone rinses or methanol...


Yep, that's the way I do it, two rinses in distilled water, when I have a lot of glassware in queue Hop in the oven. be careful with methanol/acetone, the brands in the hardware stores near here are contaminated with a load of unknown dissolved white crap. If you wanna do it this way, distill your acetone/methanol before !

Texium - 28-6-2014 at 19:32

I was considering starting this thread myself the other day. Thank you very much for all of the advice. Not sure why I never thought of using alcohols or acetone to rinse! Normally I've just done a distilled water rinse and then let air dry, now I think I'll use isopropanol, since it's really cheap.