Sciencemadness Discussion Board

dropper bottle safety

ScopeGuy - 20-11-2015 at 23:15

I have been going through my older chemicals and remixing many of them. I stored most of my stuff in dropper bottles. Half my dropper tops are damaged or hard and unusable. Its gotten me to think of safety. I ordered Qorpak Thermoset PTFE lined caps to fit most of my bottles. They seem to be working great but time will tell. Is there any chemical resistant droppers that fit 20-400 necks that would be a good 6 month choice when I am using them.

Also I don't have a chemical storage area. I was keeping everything on a bookshelf. Not good I guess. Would a 2 foot fireproof safe work as a safe place? Look for suggestions on a safe inexpensive place to keep them. I already have the empty safe so that would be good if it would work but I don't have any experience on where to keep them.

Dr.Bob - 21-11-2015 at 08:11

Any dropper with a rubber bulb will deteriorate over time, moreso around many common chemicals, but ozone, chlorine, bleach, sulfur compounds, and many more things destroy or harden rubber. I would only use droppers for short term use or frequently needed chemicals.

The same applies for plastic wash bottles, solvent evaporates from them quickly, so if you try to store chemicals in them, they will slowly evaporate or, in a few cases, degrade. Worse yet, if you are stupid enough to try to move full wash bottles when moving labs, they are very likely to leak and cause a mess. Not that I would ever do that.... Doh.

subsecret - 22-11-2015 at 07:19

Quote: Originally posted by Dr.Bob  


The same applies for plastic wash bottles, solvent evaporates from them quickly, so if you try to store chemicals in them, they will slowly evaporate or, in a few cases, degrade. Worse yet, if you are stupid enough to try to move full wash bottles when moving labs, they are very likely to leak and cause a mess. Not that I would ever do that.... Doh.



I pick them up by the tube without a problem.

ScopeGuy, I've had experience with Qorpak PTFE caps, particularly the polypropylene ones with a PTFE liner. These are great for most things, but fuming nitric acid will degrade the PP, causing cracks. I've never tried it with the much stiffer green ones.

ScopeGuy - 23-11-2015 at 18:31

Thank you for the info on the droppers and PTFE caps. I feel a lot better now about when to use each.