The origin of Pyrex

Journal of Chemical Education

Volumn 83, Issue 5, 2006, Pages 692-693

  Jensen, William B ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CHEMICAL ATTACK; CHEMICAL INDUSTRY; MARKETING; THERMAL STRESS;

CORNING GLASS (CO); LABORATORY GLASSWARE; MECHANICAL SHOCK; PYREX BRAND; THERMAL SHOCK;

BOROSILICATE GLASS;

EID: 33646441196     PISSN: 00219584     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1021/ed083p692     Document Type: Article

References (8)

1. Lavoisier, A. "Sur la nature de l'eau et sur le expériences par lesquelles on a prétendu prouver la possibilité de son changement en terre", Mem. Acad. Sci. 1770, 73, 90. Reprinted in Grimaux, E., Ed., Oeuvres de Lavoisier, Vol. II, Imprimerie Impériale: Paris, 1862, pp 1-28. Failure to heed this property of glass also led to the polywater scandal of the 1960s.
2. See Frank, F. Polywater; MIT: Cambridge, MA, 1981.
3. This is the primary reason why most surviving chemical glassware dates from the 18th century or later. So-called examples of renaissance and medieval laboratory glassware found in many European museums are in fact mostly modern reproductions. However, many broken fragments of older glassware have been recovered by archaeologists. See Anderson, R. G. W. The Archaeology of Chemistry. In Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry, Holmes, F. L.; Levere, T. H., Eds.; MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 2000; Chapter 1.
4. Child, E. The Tools of the Chemist: Their Ancestry and American Evolution; Reinhold: New York, NY, 1940; pp 93-111.
5. An early catalog for Pyrex brand laboratory glassware in the Oesper Collections is dated 1916 and is essentially an eight-page pamphlet.
6. Walker, P. H.; Smither, F. A. Comparative Tests of Chemical Glassware, Technological Papers of the Bureau of Standards, No. 107, Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1918.
7. In the 1930s the name Pyrex was also employed for a brand of carbon tetrachloride used in fire extinguishers. In this context, it no doubt stood for a contraction of fire (pyr) and extinguish (ex). See Grant, J. Hackh's Chemical Dictionary, 3rd ed.; Blakiston: Philadelphia, PA, 1944; p 698.
8. Blaszczyk, R. L. Imaging Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning; Johns Hopkins: Baltimore, MD, 2000; p 220.