Time Efficient Method for Washing 15 mL Vials
Arrange vials so that they all sit upright in a large plastic cage .
I’ve found you can usually fit about 60 vials ( a bit more than one bag ) into a single cage .
Place caps into a small cage .
Place cages upright into a soap bath overnight .
Place a large piece of PTFE over the cages to keep them submerged .
Remove cages from soap , and rinse thoroughly 7 times to remove soap .
It’s important to make sure that water gets into each individual vial , so move the cage back and forth until each of the vials is at least partially filled .
When pouring the water back out , make sure to shake the cage so that in interior of all the vials is rinsed .
Rinse the outsides in between rinsing the vial interiors .
Place cages upright into a 1N HCl bath .
Once or twice during the week , invert and / or rotate all of the cages ( vials and caps ) to make sure all surfaces are exposed .
Remove vials and caps from the bath and rinse each cage 7 times to remove most of the HCl .
Clean an area in the drying bench with a clean wipe , and place cages into the drying bench .
With thoroughly cleaned and rinsed poly gloves , remove each vial from the cage and individually rinse the vial plus one cap three times .
Stand in front of the flow bench to shake out excess water , cap vial , and place in a bag for storage .
