Laboratory Flasks

Laboratory flasks are containers which are classified as glassware. They are a number of shapes and sizes with wider bodies or narrower tubular sections at the top or neck. They are specified by how much volume they hold and this is typically given in millilitres. I Reaction flasks are spherical with round bottoms and joints at the neck to connect to other pieces of apparatus. They are made of thick glass and can withstand high pressure, even vacuums. Multiple neck types have up to five necks for complex processes and multiple reagents. Distillation flasks have one narrow neck and thinner glass since this is easier to heat. Some varieties can be test tube or pear-shaped. Reagent flasks are flat-bottomed, cannot withstand high pressure and some have a glass stopper in the neck. Erlenmeyer ones are shaped like a cone and are popular because of their low price. The volumetric ones are used to prepare liquid volumes of high precision while the Dewar flask is double-walled with a vacuum between. Flasks are used for making solutions, holding or collecting samples and volumetrically measuring chemicals. For chemical reactions, they are necessary for mixing, heating, cooling, dissolving, precipitation, distillation or analysis.