Because of the critical nature of laboratory work, safety cabinets are designed and manufactured to meet the specific needs of the workplace. One of the leading causes of industrial fires is the improper storage and handling of flammable liquids. To minimize these hazards it is very important to identify all of the chemicals in your lab. You will need to record the type of chemical and keep a list for inventory purposes. Every chemical should come with an (MSDS) Material Safety Data Sheet, for your review. Th MSDS will provide you with the all the pertinent information you will need, such as; Chemical identity, Hazardous Ingredients, Physical and Chemical Characteristics, Fire and Explosion Data, Reactivity Data and last but not least Health Hazard Data. After reading the MSDS carefully, determine the characteristics and recommended storage information. This will help you differentiate chemicals that are not compatible with each other. Storing the wrong chemicals together might cause a fire, an explosion or the release of toxic gases. The Safety Cabinet you choose should guarantee safety and product protection under all your laboratory conditions. It is most important that the cabinet you choose meets your State and Local Fire Codes. If the Chemical being stored is flammable or combustible an (OSHA) standard will apply. (OSHA) is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. For flammable or combustible fluids OSHA 1910.106 standard will apply. Depending on your specific chemicals characteristics and laboratory space available to you, requirements for the Safety Cabinet you select will be unique. Some cabinets come in compact sizes for under the counter storage. Justrite brand, carries these types of cabinets. Other choices available to you are wall mount, vertical, one and two door. Eagle Manufacturing ,carries a space saver cabinet for those labs that have limited storage space. Please be diligent about reading all of the information in the MSDS's that you receive with your chemicals. If you do not receive an MSDS, contact the supplier to obtain one. You will need the MSDS in assisting you in making a choice that at the "end of the day" could save a life.

Conductivity is the quality or power of conducting or transmitting: as the reciprocal of electrical resistivity: the quality of living matter is responsible for the transmission of and progressive reaction to stimuli. Electricity has existed as lightning in the skies since the beginning of the universe, even before there was life on earth. Early cave people probably recognized the force of electricity when lightning struck. They might also have noticed the way amber attracts light objects, or the way certain fish, such as the electric eel, stun their prey. What is Conductivity? Conductivity is a measure of how easily an electric current runs through water between two electrodes. The greater amount of salts, acids, and bases are in the water, the greater the conductivity will be. Check out our line of conductivity meters. You can use our portable and bench top meters for all kinds of applications in the field as well as in the lab. Please visit our website. The conductivity meters that we offer will suit a variety of customers; they would be great for a high school full of enthusiastic science students as well as our environmentalist who may be monitoring the conductivity of our lakes and ponds. Tammy Watkins

It will not surprise anyone at microscopes.com that chromatography was first invented by a Russian. He was separating plant pigments, which is why separation methods are called "Chromo" tography. Imagine a group of people are going out on the town. They're in a town with many different types of entertainment. As they walk down the street some of the people go into the theatre, some go into the comedy club, and some go to the casino. They are separating themselves by their different affinities (tastes). In the same way chemicals are carried along by a mobile phase (liquid or gas) past a stationary phase (gel, or silica, or chemical bonded on particles) and separate themselves by their affinity for the stationary phase. Eventually they are all replaced on the stationary phase by the mobile phase. They are carried past a detector in separate bands in the mobile phase. The chemicals can be detected in various ways the most common is by their absorption of a specific wavelength of light (UV detection). The amount of light absorption is directly proportional to the chemical's concentration. The different types of chromatography are categorized by their stationary phase or by the mobile phase in the case of Gas Chromatography (GC). Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) is a stationary phase thinly coated on an inert support plate. Liquid Chromatography (LC) is small particles coated with the stationary phase and packed into a column. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) is similar to LC except that the particles are much smaller and the analysis is performed under high pressures. Other types of chromatography include Ion Exange Chromatography which separates molecules by their charge and Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC) which separates large molecules like proteins by their size.