Tubes

DWK Life Sciences understands the importance of this laboratory staple and dedicates
significant resources to offer laboratory tube options that meet your varying needs. Whether your work calls for borosilicate or soda-lime glass, we stock the right laboratory tubes for your application. In addition, through our extensive North American glass tube manufacturing capabilities, we stay flexible to meet high, often unexpected, demand. For example, our Rockwood, Tennessee facility offers unsurpassed culture tube production capacity — over 3.5 million disposable versions are produced daily, ready when you need them.

These versatile laboratory tubes are ideal for use in tissue culture and clinical chemistry
applications. For your convenience, we manufacture the screw thread disposable glass tube with both flat and round bottoms. And while they don’t include caps, you have the option of including a marking spot. Our plain disposable premium-quality laboratory tubes are produced from amber 51 expansion borosilicate glass to give superior protection for light-sensitive applications. Responding to customer requirements, each KIMBLE® color-coded, blood-typing glass tube features a permanent ceramic area pre-labeled with blood type. This label area is fused to the glass and easily written on with a marker or pencil. The KIMBLE® MARK-M™ disposable culture tube, available in various colors, also offers the convenience of a permanent banded ceramic label that is fused to the glass. For standard lab use, our multi-purpose plain glass culture tubes — available in disposable and reusable — include a fire-polished top to eliminate sharp edges. We recommend disposable non-sterile plastic tubes for everyday use in routine lab procedures. Available in polystyrene and polypropylene, they round out the varied selection of culture tubes.

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Wall thickness, concentricity, and camber? When it comes to NMR tubes we know that these three criteria are critical to performance. That’s why we guarantee the accuracy of our design, manufacturing, and quality processes to deliver you consistently optimal NMR glass tubes. Designed for use with NMR spectrometers, each tube meets rigid specifications to eliminate variation and assure precise measurements and reproducibility. To address a variety of needs, our NMR tubes are available in KIMAX®-HQ highest quality, thrift-grade, disposable-grade, and specialty tubes. KIMAX®-HQ NMR tubes are available in 3mm, 5mm, and 10mm OD with polyethylene caps attached. To protect your valuable samples from the harmful effect of visible and UV wavelengths, be sure to use the RAY-SORB® 5mm NMR tubes. We also offer a threaded NMR, valved 5mm NMR and a seal-off 5mm NMR tube for air-sensitive or toxic compounds.

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Manufactured to strict specification the capillary tubes are indispensable for accurate transfer, measurement, and testing of liquids as well as sample collection. KIMAX ® melting point capillary tubes are the ideal choice to determine the point at which a solid sample turns to liquid. The glass tube length ensures that the open end will extend well above the bath’s surface to prevent the bath liquid from entering the tube. For spotting pre-absorbent TLC plates, our MICROCAPS® capillary tubes are supplied with one bulb assembly and one dispenser vial with 100 micropipettes. To simplify ordering and maximize convenience, we offer the MICROCAPS® kit. For those occasions which require micro liquid measurements, we offer microcapillary pipettes in capacities ranging from 5 (µL) to100 (µL).

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Designed for various safe blood collection techniques, blood typing, and testing, these glass tubes are manufactured to conform to strict specifications. To best suit different situations, all blood collection tubes are available with and without ammonium heparin coating. Both the Caraway blood tube and the Natelson blood tube are designed for use with those specific techniques and feature tapered tips for easy collection of micro-blood samples. To measure the volume percentage of red blood cells in blood, we offer the essential microhematocrit capillary tube, packed in plastic vials with re-closable snap-lock caps to maintain cleanliness.

If your work involves measuring the rate at which red blood cells settle out of plasma, choose from our erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) tubes. The Wintrobe (ESR) tube can be used with standard or modified procedure and are available with various features that include; round bottom, open at both ends, and cotton plugged. Westergren sedimentation rate tubes may be used for the standard procedure, by drawing blood in a liquid sodium citrate vacuum tube, or the modified procedure, using a saline-diluted EDTA vacuum tube. KIMBLE® color-coded blood typing glass tubes feature a permanent ceramic pre-labeled blood type and label, fused to the glass, which is easily written on with marker or pencil.

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To meet your laboratory tube needs, DWK Life Sciences offers a broad selection of glass test tubes. Our product line has built-in flexibility to suit a variety of application needs. For example, reusable plain test tubes are available with or without marking spots, with a beaded rim or with a flat head glass stopper. Our graduated test tubes are manufactured with the scale in a permanent brown stain that will stand up to repeated use. And our round bottom test tubes, with a standard taper joint, are available in a wide range of capacities from 4mL to 800mL.

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Whether you need disposable centrifuge tubes at the laboratory benchtop or petrochemical centrifuge tubes in the field, we provide a broad selection of glass tubes to match your testing needs. Heavy-duty centrifuge bottles provide a small bottom area for better concentration of sediment, facilitating decanting of liquid. KIMAX® oil and weathering centrifuge tubes are graduated using LAZER-FUSED™ marking technology that reduces the potential weaknesses acid and mechanical etching may cause. These laboratory tubes are available threaded for disposable phenolic screw caps, PTFE and glass stopper, or with a tooled rim for secure, leak-proof, snap-cap sealing. Providing a consistent uniform wall thickness and a well-formed conical tapered tip allows for easy sample removal.

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Frequently Asked Questions

The thousands of blood tests that are performed every day in today’s modern labs fall into four main categories:

  • Hematology
  • Microbiology
  • Biochemistry
  • Serology

Hematology tests examine the blood to identify the following three things:

  • The types and numbers of blood cells that are present — specifically, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets
  • The appearance of the cells, especially their maturity
  • The ability and speed for the blood to clot

Biochemistry tests measure the amount of normally occurring chemicals and biochemicals in the blood, both individually and in relation to other chemicals. These measurements are compared to normal ranges for that test and are used to determine whether blood biochemicals are in a proper and healthy balance. Biochemicals and other substances that may be studied include the following:

  • Sodium
  • Hormones
  • Recreational drugs
  • Cholesterol and other fats
  • Blood gases
  • Alcohol
  • Vitamins and minerals
  • Prescription drugs

Biochemical tests can precisely measure these substances and be used to indicate how well some organs and organ systems are functioning. For instance, the amount of blood sugar (glucose) in the bloodstream can help to diagnose or monitor diabetes and indirectly reflect how much insulin is being produced by the pancreas.

Microbiology tests examine blood for the presence of infectious microscopic organisms such as the following:

  • Smears, in which a small amount of blood is placed on a glass slide for examination under a microscope. Sometimes the blood smear is stained with special dyes before examination.
  • Blood cultures, in which a small amount of blood is placed in a nutrient broth, incubated for days or weeks, and then examined for growth of disease-causing bacteria.

Serology tests (those done on blood serum) can detect the presence of antibodies that are produced by white blood cells to attack microscopic organisms. They are frequently used to detect viral diseases. Most hospital laboratories do not have the equipment or specially trained personnel necessary to isolate the viruses themselves, so serology tests are done instead to identify the infecting organism by studying the antibodies produced against it.

We include a heparin anticoagulant coating option in blood collection tubes to reduce the risk of a clot forming in after being collection and before the actual test is performed.

Smoke rings, sometimes called boron haze, may occur when gases are trapped inside the tube during finishing. Sometimes, the smoky appearance is caused by condensation since borosilicate glass is thermally shocked with water.