Heat-On replaces unsafe oil baths at a leading Australian University

Oil baths were being used to heat reaction mixtures but with the high cost of silicone oils, laboratory staff were using less safe paraffin oils. Also, a relatively inexpensive alternative seemed to polymerize with monotonous regularity.

Replace expensive oils, improve safety in the teaching and research labs and reduce environmentally harmful oil waste.

After investigating blocks from different suppliers Heat-On was chosen for several reasons. The main reason was that unlike ‘nested’ systems the 250 ml, 500 ml, 1 litre, 2 litre and 3 litre came as stand-alone blocks, so more than one person could perform a reaction at a time. Another block system had several ‘nested’ sizes, needing the 1 litre block with a 250 ml insert to do a 250 ml reaction, precluding anyone else doing another reaction as the base block was already in use.