central science

The group I work in inherited an old lab that had a lot of old supplies in it.

This is a bottle of boiling chips.

Boiling chips are small little porous particles that look like small pebbles. You add them to a liquid that you’re heating (i.e. during distillation) to ensure a smooth and easy release of gas as the liquid heats.

If you don’t add boiling chips the liquid could start to ‘bump.’ Bumping is where it basically boils really violently like you’d see when you boil water in your kitchen. If you boil such a small volume in such a small flask or test tube, you’re gonna start shooting your liquid out, causing you to lose sample and perhaps burn yourself. Boiling chips ideally are chemically inert, and it should only take a few chips to keep your liquid boiling nicely.