The following protocol is to be used for washing plastic and glass bottles, flasks, beakers, and graduated cylinders.

1. Check the dirty area by the sink for any dishes that need to be washed. This includes the cart in Room 230.
2. Place all of the dirty dishes into a plastic tub on a cart to transport over to the autoclave/washing room (Room 210). The dishwasher is the "Lancer Washer".
   • Load the glassware onto the washing racks. There are two racks, one with smaller pegs and one with larger pegs and larger spaces between pegs.
   • The rack with smaller pegs holds smaller glassware (small graduated cylinders, flasks, bottles, etc.).
   • The rack with larger pegs holds large glassware (2/4/6 L flasks, 1 L or larger glass/plastic bottles, 500 mL or larger graduated cylinders, etc.).
   • If doing a wash cycle with very large glassware (6 L flask), you will only be able to use the large rack rather than both the small and large rack.
   • Stir bars, spatulas, scoops, and bottle caps go into one of the metal wire pans on top of the Lancer Washer. These metal pans fit in between the pegs.
3. Turn on the power of the washer once all labware is loaded and the door is closed.
   • Press "1" for normal use and press "4" for glassware with agar that needs to be removed. Then press "START" to initiate the wash cycle. Each cycle is about 2 hours.
4. Once washing is complete, prepare the necessary glassware for autoclaving:
   • Put aluminum foil completely over the mouths of glass flasks, graduated cylinders, beakers, etc. Wrap spatulas and scoops in aluminum foil if needed.
   • Place autoclave tape (Room 210) on all aluminum foil, caps of bottles, and somewhere on anything that will be autoclaved.

Detergent and acid rinse

Liquid detergent and acid rinse are pumped into the machine from bottles in the drawer at the bottom of the washer. When the bottles have 2 inches or less of fluid, make more.

• Liquid detergent — pour most of 1 gallon of Super Q water (in Room 210, ask a lab member for assistance) into the container, add 70 mL Contrad 70, then add the rest of the Super Q water. Adding the water last avoids foaming.
• Acid rinse — fill the acid clean jug with 3 liters of Super Q water, then add 2 liters of glacial acetic acid.

These materials are located in labeled drawers in Room 210. Adding liquid detergent and acid is generally done by William.