Sciencemadness Discussion Board

So I was on IKEA today...

MeshPL - 30-7-2017 at 01:35

They are even made of borosilicate glass! Beakers with handles are rare but not unheard of. The price is good for the beakers with handles of it size.

They market it as milk jugs but they will not fool me!

This is IKEA Poland BTW.

20170730_112534.jpg - 116kB

unionised - 30-7-2017 at 01:51

It seems they are also available in the UK
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/cookware/mixing-measuring...

j_sum1 - 30-7-2017 at 02:57

Also available Australia.
http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/30323305/
http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/10323306/

Anyone know for sure that these are borosilicate? It does say "heat resistant" so I guess that is something.
My nearest IKEA is a couple of hundred km away but I will visit some time soon. A 1L beaker for that price is not bad -- especially when you consider that I normally have to add at least the price of the beaker to cover shipping.

MeshPL - 30-7-2017 at 03:08

Here where I live the price is OK for beakers with handles, yet normal beakers are twice as cheap. Still the price is good for what you get. I didn't buy any as I don't need more beakers than I have and I don't need ones with handles.

I assumed they wee borosilicate, because that is what "heat resistant" usually means. Plus they had a greenish-bluish hue which is also typical for borosilicate.

brubei - 30-7-2017 at 03:24

Quote: Originally posted by MeshPL  
They are even made of borosilicate glass! Beakers with handles are rare but not unheard of. The price is good for the beakers with handles of it size.

They market it as milk jugs but they will not fool me!

This is IKEA Poland BTW.
they also have fumehood, very strange :p

Sulaiman - 30-7-2017 at 03:53

Quote: Originally posted by MeshPL  

I assumed they wee borosilicate, because that is what "heat resistant" usually means. Plus they had a greenish-bluish hue which is also typical for borosilicate.


I suspect that these are toughened sodalime glass, like USA PYREX,
also, in glass, green is usually due to iron and indicates cheap glass,
and as borosilicate glass is more expensive than sodalime glass, if borosilicate is used, it is usually explicitly mentioned.

MeshPL - 30-7-2017 at 06:09

Ok, than they may not be a very good beakers after all. Still, they are not milk jugs, they are beakers.

elementcollector1 - 30-7-2017 at 06:38

Borosilicate has a distinct yellow color to it when viewing the cross-section, unlike sodalime's greenish-blue.

unionised - 30-7-2017 at 07:33

Colour is not a well controlled property of most glass. You can not reliably say "it's the wrong (or right) colour to be borosilicate".

elementcollector1 - 30-7-2017 at 10:18

Quote: Originally posted by unionised  
Colour is not a well controlled property of most glass. You can not reliably say "it's the wrong (or right) colour to be borosilicate".


Are you sure? We used it to distinguish between sodalime and borosilicate in several lab classes, and we were correct every time. Not to mention all the times I've used it to distinguish beakers, test tubes, etc. It's a very reliable test in my experience, almost infallible.

You might be thinking of colored glass, which is not the same and depends on transition metal impurities such as copper, gold, etc. I am referring to the transparent borosilicate glass used in labware, and the sodalime glass used in most other applications. It is very easy to check which is which: Simply take a beaker and look at the rim from above, and do the same with a Pyrex measuring cup or similar glass kitchen item. You will immediately be able to see the difference in color, regardless of how much variance exists within two samples of the same type of glass. Sodalime will always be a blue-green, and borosilicate will always be a yellow or yellowish green.

Sulaiman - 30-7-2017 at 11:04

For my diy solar panels I bought low-iron soda lime glass to allow the shorter wavelengths to pass with minimal attenuation, even then looking edge-on a 1m sheet has a little green tinge.
This document gives more info.

Attachment: Workshop_2010.pdf (590kB)
This file has been downloaded 422 times

unionised - 30-7-2017 at 12:13

This is kitchen pyrex and it's clearly blueish- because it is coloured that way.
https://www.johnlewis.com/pyrex-glass-mixing-bowl/p179636?sk...


Texium - 30-7-2017 at 13:00

Quote: Originally posted by unionised  
This is kitchen pyrex and it's clearly blueish- because it is coloured that way.
https://www.johnlewis.com/pyrex-glass-mixing-bowl/p179636?sk...

You really think that looks clearly bluish? I think it looks yellowish. :P

unionised - 30-7-2017 at 13:10

The Pyrex kitchenware I have is (deliberately) blueish.
This sort of thing
http://www.okcandle.com/products/Clear-blue-rectangle-pyrex-...
And if you think it's yellow, that rather proves my point that you can't rely on the colour.

OldNubbins - 30-7-2017 at 17:49

Can't rely on the color of a photograph (lighting conditions, filters, post processing, etc.)

The jury is is probably still out on a physical examination.