What Is and How to Use Petri Dishes

Petri dishes are shallow nested Petri dishes made of glass or plastic commonly used in laboratories. The dishes also feature clear lids, allowing users to grow bacteria, molds, and other microbes, which can then be examined under a microscope. Here are some introductions of Petri Dishes.

Brief introductions of Petri Dishes:

60 mm cell culture dish 35-150mm TC treated cell culture dishes

The history of Petri dishes:

  • In 1887, a German scientist named Julius Richard Petri developed a shallowly nested disk for use in laboratory experiments.
  • Before the invention of the present invention, scientists used test tubes, empty wine bottles, and other types of glass jars to grow cultures.
  • Unlike these glass containers, the lid of the petri dish fits securely over the petri dish to protect the culture inside.
  • Provide a more efficient way of multiplying bacteria and also solve the problem of contamination of laboratory cultures.
  • Cultures grown in open containers allow airborne contaminants to interfere with bacteria or mold.
  • Switching to a glass jar with a lid can provide some protection.

How to use Petri dishes:

  • In some cases, petri dish uses must be prepared for experiments.
  • The first step is to sterilize the Petri dishes with a bleach solution before filling the agar medium. It can then be placed in the refrigerator until the experiment begins.
  • During the experiment, be sure to cover the plate. In some labs, including classrooms, Petri dishes may be sealed with tape to prevent accidental opening.
  • When scientists grow bacteria, yeast, or mold in a Petri dish, they do it on agar plates.
  • Agar comes from a type of algae. This jelly-like substance provides microbes with vital nutrients, such as glucose and salt.
  • It is packaged in a bottle and can also be in tablet or powder form.
  • After cooling, the resulting agar solidified and had the consistency of gelatin.

What are Petri dishes used for:

  • Due to its versatility, the Petri plate is one of the most useful devices in the laboratory.
  • Not only is it an excellent environment for cultivating bacteria, yeasts, molds, and viruses, but it has other uses as well.
  • They can be used to observe insect behavior, observe seed germination, store samples, and evaporate solvents.
  • It is suitable for epidemic prevention stations, hospitals, biological products, the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and other units, for the separation and culture of drugs, and the detection, and qualitative analysis of drug titers.
  • In scientific research such as agriculture and aquaculture, it is used for the artificial cultivation and hatching of seeds, plants, insects, and fish. The electronics industry or other industries are used as utensils.

Some tips for Petri dishes:

The difference between a petri dish and an evaporating dish:

  1. The TC-treated culture dish consists of a bottom and a lid and is generally used for culture experiments. Usually made of glass or plastic. The upper cover has the function of keeping warm and moisturizing.
  2. Evaporating dishes without lids for evaporating concentrated solutions or burning solids.
  3. The bottom of the mouth is shallow, and there are two kinds of porcelain evaporating dishes with a handle, a round bottom, and a flat bottom, as well as those made of glass, quartz, platinum, etc.
  4. Different materials have different corrosion resistance and should be appropriately selected according to the properties of the solution and solid.

There are more introduces about how is the petri dish used, how to clean Petri dishes, etc.