Re-using Culture flasks - (Jun/01/2009 )
I wonder how practical it would be to make an autoclavable culture flask.
I could imagine it:
Make a culture flask out of glass, like a general fischerbrand 75 cm flask. Have a cap and filter that can be autoclaved.
After use, wash it out really well, rinse with a good amount of ethanol, place it in the fumehood to dry, place the autoclavable cap on, and then bring to an autoclave to sterilize. Afterward, bring it to the hood, open it up, and use it.
Why is something like that not possible?
What about cell plates? i think it would be more practical to have cell plates. Use them, wash them, rinse them, wrap them with aluminum foil, and sterilize. Afterward, use in hood.
It seems like the major concern would be trace chemicals left behind rather than intruding prokaryotic or eukaryotic organisms.
It seems like a person might as well use a glass petri dish if he/she wants a reusable container. I see the only problem in being careful so no contamination occurs. Otherwise, yeah, I think some glass petri dishes wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Genecks on Sun May 6 01:05:55 2012 said:
I wonder how practical it would be to make an autoclavable culture flask.
I could imagine it:
Make a culture flask out of glass, like a general fischerbrand 75 cm flask. Have a cap and filter that can be autoclaved.
After use, wash it out really well, rinse with a good amount of ethanol, place it in the fumehood to dry, place the autoclavable cap on, and then bring to an autoclave to sterilize. Afterward, bring it to the hood, open it up, and use it.
Why is something like that not possible?
It is possible. Before disposable plasticware, all tissue culture ware was glass!
But what a pain to have to decontaminate, then wash thoroughly, then sterilise every time you use a flask or dish? The time you waste doing that would buy you a case of disposables easily. The most valuable resource in any lab is your time.
Not to mention the stringent quality control you would need in order to maintain your glassware. Lab water supplies can (and do) have significant levels of endotoxin present in them too, so I don't know about you but I'd rather not have LPS in my tissue culture thanks!
Well, right now I'm out of flasks. The lab tech didn't order more, and I'd jump for some glass petri dishes. lol. 
Maybe trypsin is not the better option to dettach your cell from the bottle, see if you can use cell scrapers, they're much better opption when you can't dettach your cells using trypsin solution. Ad try to not reuse your bottles!!!
Will cell scrapers get off all the cells though? And couldn't they be damaged as a result of the scraping?