Lab Skills & Techniques

This is a compendium of lab techniques that will be useful for students in chemistry. Under each section, you may find links to YouTube videos, files, or written descriptions of procedures on how to perform many tasks in the lab.

Please remember that safety is always a concern. You should review the skills that pertain to an experiment BEFORE you do an experiment in class.

Lab techniques to come:

proper way of moving hot test tubes, beakers, evaporating dishes, crucibles

Proper way of heating a beaker, crucible, evaporating dish

How to set up a proper Burner flame, and types of burners: Tirrill, Bunsen, and Meker

How to cut, bend and fire polish glassware

How to transfer

Setting up a vacuum filtration (with safety trap)

How to set up a hot water bath safely

pipeting

Gas collection by water displacement

Burette with burette paper

distillation

cleaning glassware

How to transfer liquids

1. how to clean and fill a burette

2. How to fill and measure a syringe

3. stirring a test tube by the tap method.

4. decant

6. filling a test tube

7. Using the Balances (top loading, analytical, and vernier scale)

8. What is a condenser? How to hook it up properly and why it is used.