Aluminum foil cups for covering laboratory vessels

Abstract

A method of covering an opening in a laboratory container with aluminum foil to provide a heat-resistant and solvent-resistant closure. The method includes the steps of: providing a preformed aluminum foil cup of sufficient size to cover the container's opening, in which the foil is less than 2.5 mils thick and is free of any substance that could contaminate the laboratory container, in which the cup includes a bottom wall and a raised perimeter sidewall continuous with, and surrounding the bottom wall; inverting and placing the cup over the opening; optionally adjusting the shape and diameter of the cup so as to fit over the opening, and compressing the sidewall of the cup to a friction fit around the opening.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] N / A STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT [0002] N / A FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0003] This invention concerns disposable coverings for laboratory containers, vessels, implements and the like. Laboratory containers typically include test tubes, flasks, beakers, vials, graduated cylinders and other vessels that have at least one opening for inserting and removing laboratory implements such as pipettes, magnetic stirring bars and the like, or laboratory materials such as chemical reagents. Disposable barrier materials for covering such containers include stretchable thermoplastic films such as Parafilm® (American National Can, Inc.) as well as household aluminum foil. The present invention is intended to facilitate the use of aluminum foil as an inexpensive heat-resistant and solvent-resistant covering, as well as sterile barrier material for laboratory containers. [0004] Perlman in U.S. Pat. No. 5,302,344 describes ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007] This invention relates to the laboratory use of preformed, and finger-formable (i.e., re-formable), aluminum foil cups, similar in appearance to those cups with vertical sidewall pleats that are used for baking muffins and cupcakes. Pleated round foil cups, for example, are usually manufactured as a stacked group, each foil cup being interleaved with a paper liner sheet, allowing the cups to be easily separated from one another at the time of use. The manufacturing process for the foil cups described herein is similar to that used for foil bakery cups by Reynolds Consumer Products (Alcoa Company, Richmond, Va.), except that the present invention requires that the commonly used lubricant placed on the cup-forming tooling surfaces, e.g., edible cocoa butter, be eliminated. Instead, a release liner paper is placed between the foil and the die to reduce any excessive frictional forces that could tear the foil. This substitution is important so that essentially no foreign materials (such as the cocoa butter) will be found on the foil. Foreign materials could be transported or leached from the foil surface and contaminate a sample held inside a laboratory container that is covered by the foil cup. Even if such a lubricant were only placed on the outside surface of a foil cup, it is possible that contact between multiple stacked cups could move some of the lubricant from the outside of one cup to the inside (interior) surface of another cup.

Problems solved by technology

Foreign materials could be transported or leached from the foil surface and contaminate a sample held inside a laboratory container that is covered by the foil cup.

Applicant has found that the conventional laboratory means for handling and cutting regular aluminum foil (e.g., commercially available in 12 inch wide rolls) that is used as a covering material on laboratory containers, is awkward and time-consuming.

More specifically, the laboratory worker is usually faced with the awkward task of either manually tearing or scissor-cutting aluminum foil into many swatches (i.e., typically flat square portions of the foil) to be used as container covers.

Handling the individual pieces of foil that are initially chemically clean, without contaminating them is also cumbersome.

While, in theory, it would be possible for a laboratory worker to hand-form and pre-sterilize foil container coverings without an accompanying container, this is not routinely done in the laboratory for several reasons.

This would be cumbersome, inconvenient, and wasteful of materials and space.

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