This section provides overview, applications, and principles of petri dishes. Also, please take a look at the list of 13 petri dish manufacturers and their company rankings.
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A glass petri dish is a petri dish or laboratory ware, that is made of glass. Other materials besides glass include plastic, anodized aluminum, and polystyrene. The name Petri dish is derived from the name of the German inventor Julius Richard Petri. The name Petri dish is also derived from German itself.
Petri dishes are used to hold test samples or to culture microorganisms or tissues. In particular, glass petri dishes have excellent heat resistance and can be reused by autoclaving or other sterilization processes after culturing bacteria and microorganisms.
A petri dish is a set of two cylindrical shallow dishes with slightly different diameters. The lid side is designed to be large and shallow, while the bottom side is small and deep. However, they are not hermetically sealed and unsuitable for culturing anaerobic bacteria and microorganisms.
Glass petri dishes are available in a variety of sizes. The most common is about 10 cm in diameter and 1 or 2 cm in height, but there is also a taller version called a waist-high petri dish on the market.
By preparing a culture medium in a glass petri dish and incubating it under an appropriate environment after inoculation, it is possible to observe the number of bacteria at the time of inoculation, and the degree of growth of the bacteria from the number of colonies in the petri dish. Glass petri dishes are highly transparent, making it easy to see what has been placed inside, and thus cultured tissues and microorganisms can be observed directly under a microscope. The excellent heat resistance of glass petri dishes also makes them suitable for sterilization.
Some glass petri dishes have a cover glass affixed to the bottom to enable high-power magnification and fluorescent observation under a microscope. Since glass petri dishes can break if dropped, care should be taken when carrying them.
There are also heat-resistant petri dishes made of materials that are more resistant to heat than ordinary glass. However, heat-resistant petri dishes are only heat-resistant, and their strength against impact is the same as that of other petri dishes. A glass petri dish called a 30% petri dish is also available, in which the bottom of the petri dish is divided into three sections, allowing the items inside to be placed separately.
The heat resistance temperature of glass petri dishes differs depending on each manufacturer and product, with some petri dishes resisting temperatures as low as 100°C and others resisting temperatures of 500°C or higher. Therefore, checking the heat resistance temperature before heat treatment or sterilization is necessary.
Even though glass petri dishes are more heat resistant than those made of other materials, it is strictly prohibited to heat them over an open flame using a burner or the like. Rapid heating may damage the glass petri dish. When applying heat to a glass petri dish for experiments, use an evaporating dish.
Glass petri dishes are generally sterilized by dry heat sterilization. Dry heat sterilization is a method of sterilizing microorganisms by heating them in dry air. It is used to sterilize glass and metal instruments that can be subjected to high-temperature treatment without problems, or that should not be exposed to steam.
Dry heat sterilization can be done by either "direct heating with gas or electricity" or "maintaining dry and hot conditions by circulating heated air"; the latter method is used to sterilize glass petri dishes. The latter method uses an electric oven or other dry heat sterilizers, which maintains the petri dish in a dry and hot state.
The heating conditions are as follows: 3 to 5 hours at 135 to 145°C, 2 to 4 hours at 160 to 170°C, 1 hour at 170 to 180°C, and 30 minutes at 180 to 200°C. Dry the glass petri dishes well, make sure there are no water droplets on them, wrap them in aluminum foil, and place them in the dry heat sterilizer. When dry-thermally sterilizing multiple glass petri dishes, make sure there is enough room in the chamber of the dry-thermal sterilizer to distribute the petri dishes evenly. This is to ensure that all the glass petri dishes are evenly heated.
Care must be taken to ensure that the metal parts of the dry heat sterilizer near the heater are not too hot, as they may be hotter than the set temperature. Turn on the sterilizer and measure the heating time after the inside of the chamber reaches the set temperature. When dry-heat sterilization is complete, stop heating and wait until the chamber cools down before removing the glass petri dish.
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