Page 16 - PERIODIC Magazine Issue 6

Sc ientific Glassblowing: a

beautiful and endangered craft

If there is one material above all that defines a chemistry accompanied by the large expansion in higher education,
research laboratory, it is glass. For centuries, glass has been enabled the profession of scientific glassblowing to come into
central to science. In the early years of what we would its own in the 1960s.
recognise as modern science, glassware was often prepared
by the scientist themselves. For many years, scientists have depended on skilled
glassblowers who can take their ideas and turn them into
Glass is the ideal material for scientific vessels because it bespoke complex and functional laboratory equipment.
is infinitely malleable, durable, chemically resistant, easily They still do: although standard equipment can be made by
sterilised and crucially, transparent – so that scientists can machines, cutting-edge research needs people to design and
observe the reaction process. construct the complex apparatus it requires.
The art of glassblowing has facilitated many of the most Terri Adams, glassblower at the Department of Chemistry, has
important innovations in science. These include Lavoisier’s been making bespoke glassware at Oxford for over 26 years
1777 experiment to heat mercury in air, which would yield since training at the University of Bristol. She works with
key evidence to support his oxygen theory. The experiments academic researchers who come to her with an idea for a new
that led to the development of the revolutionary lithium- experiment, or a rudimentary design. From their (usually)
ion battery were carried out at Oxford Chemistry using
bespoke glassware. Glassblowing played a key part in many
technological innovations – from Edison’s light bulb to
televisions and radios (the advancement of which depended
on sealed glass tubes containing a near-vacuum to allow the
passage of an electric current) and modern-day fibre optics for
computer networking and communication.

To meet so many functional requirements, glass needs to be
manipulated into a myriad of shapes and forms. There are
three different types of glass readily employed in a research
environment and these often have to be fused to other
materials such as precious metal, silicon or ceramics. This,

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Periodic The Magazine of the Department of Chemistry