Handling and measurement
Vial
Last updated
The small glass bottle the powder comes in. It is closed by a rubber stopper held down by an aluminium ring, with a coloured plastic disc on top that flips off with a thumbnail. The flip-off disc is a dust cover, not the seal. The rubber stopper is the seal, it stays on for the life of the vial, and liquid goes in and out by pushing a needle through it.
Why it matters here
The stopper is the only barrier between the contents and the room, so every entry through it is an event. It is what starts the usable window and it is what a swab is for. Prising off the metal ring to pour the liquid out destroys that barrier permanently.
What it is not
The flip-top cap is not a lid you can put back on. Once it is off, the rubber underneath is exposed and stays exposed for good, which is why the stopper is swabbed before every entry rather than only the first one.
Also called
- vial
- vials
- bottle
- flip top
- flip-top
- stopper
- ampoule
- ampule
Bottle is the plain word. An ampoule is a different object, a sealed all-glass container that you snap open, used once and with no stopper to pierce, and the two names get swapped freely in listings.
Compounds carrying this term
None on file yet. This term is in the controlled vocabulary but no compound record currently uses it — which is a statement about our coverage, not about the term.