Equipements and laboratory materials used in microbiology


  1. Petri dish: A shallow cylindrical glass or plastic lidded dish used for the culturing. Usually available in 6 cm, 10 cm, and 15 cm size (diameter).
  2. Inoculation loop: is a simple tool usually made up of platinum wire used to retrieve an inoculum from a culture of microorganisms.
  3. Agar medium: solidified medium, that contains all the essential nutrients for bacterial growth. It has an agar concentration of about 1-2%. Semisolid have little concentration, such as soft agar (only 0.3-0.7%).
  4. Broth medium: Liquefied medium, that contains all the essential nutrients for bacterial growth.
  5. Agar plate: petri dish containing solidified agar medium.
  6. Agar Slants: Test tube containing solidified agar medium at a slope, used for preparation and preservation of cultures.
  7. Agar stab: Test tube containing solid culture medium with deep perforation used for anaerobic culturing.
  8. Canisters: porous buckets used for carrying cultures and media.
  9. Anaerobic jars: Closed chamber with a closed outfit for air, used for anaerobic culturing in the laboratory.
  10. Dropping bottles: used for carrying staining solutions in the lab. These can maintain a dropwise flow of staining solutions.
  11. Staining rack: used to support the slides during staining.
  12. Centrifuge machine: used to spin the suspension/blood for the separation of cells/cell debris from the fluid. Ordinary centrifuge can attain speeds of 5000RPM ordinary and higher of 15000RPM. Ultracentrifuge can gain a speed of 60000RPM, used to separate subcellular fractions.
  13. Colony counter: Illuminated stage with magnifying lens attachment used for the counting of bacterial colonies.
  14. Cotton swabs: Small stick with a cotton wool head used for sampling.
  15. Culture hood: A closed cabinet with the UV light arrangement used for culturing to maintain a sterilized environment.
  16. Discard jar: Jar filled with disinfectants (household bleach 10%), used for discarded slides pipettes, etc.
  17. Glass slide: a rectangular piece of glass sheet (3.0 x 1.5 cm), used for smear formation or observation under a microscope.
  18. Glass coverslip: rectangular or circular thin sheet of glass (usually 1 cm2) used for permanent mounting of smear and cell culture experiments.
  19. Glass cavity slide: Glass slide having concavity in its center. Used to determine the motility of bacteria under a microscope.
  20. Microscope: simple, compound, or binocular used for detailed study of microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) or stained smears.
  21. Hot air oven: closed cabinet with a hot air facility that can maintain temperatures up to 200°C. Used for sterilization of glassware or metal equipment.
  22. Autoclave: used for sterilization of solutions and media. Normally a pressure of 15PSI is used for 15 min at 121°C.
  23. Incubator: Used for growing of microbial cultures at a specific and constant temperature. The ordinary incubators can maintain a temperature of 25-40°C. While the low-temperature incubators usually operate at -1 to 10°C.
  24. Roller bottle: round graduated bottle with tick screw cap cork, used for cell culture.
  25. Erlenmeyer flask or conical flask: is a type of laboratory flask that features a flat bottom, a conical body, and a cylindrical neck.
  26. Fernbach flask: A Fernbach flask is a type of flask suited for large volume cell culture where the culture requires a large surface area to volume ratio.
  27. Cell culture flask: large surface area flasks with a bent neck, used for cell culture to provide large surface area.
  28. Micrometer: stage and ocular micrometers with graduated calibrations used for micrometry.
  29. Microdispenser: Micropipette that delivers a very minute amount of solutions, used for dispensing and diluting solutions. Multiple sizes (volume) and channels are available. 
  30. Pipette: used for transferring of liquid materials. Pasteur pipettes are used small volumes while graduated pipettes are used for calibration of large volume.
  31. pH meter: buffer calibrated instrument used to monitor and adjust the pH of solutions.
  32. Seitz filter: Stainless steel assembly with asbestos filters, used for sterilization of liquid media and serum.
  33. Magnetic stirrer: instrument provided with a hot plate arrangement, used for proper homogeneous mixing of the solutions.
  34. Laminar Airflow cabinet: semi-closed cabinet with filtered airflow arrangement used for culture manipulations.
  35. Lyophilization apparatus: used for the preservation of cultures or vaccines for an extended period of time.
  36. UV lamp: used for decontamination of a laboratory environment.
  37. Water bath: used to maintain a constant temperature of agar and other solutions.
  38. Water still: pyrex glass assembly used for distillation of water.
  39. Vacuum pump: used for creating negative and positive pressure infiltration systems.
  40. Weighing balance: required for weighing of ingredients for making solutions and media

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