Aluminium Foil, Roll

Quick Answer: The Aluminium Foil, Roll supplies thin rolled aluminium sheet on a continuous roll, used in laboratories to cap flasks and tubes for sterilisation, shield light-sensitive solutions, line trays and wrap samples and glassware.

Why Laboratories Keep Foil on Hand

An aluminium foil roll earns its place because foil is easy to shape by hand and unaffected by the temperatures of a steam autoclave or a hot-air oven, so it stands in for purpose-made caps in many routine jobs. A square pressed over the mouth of a conical flask or the open end of a tube keeps dust and airborne microbes out during sterilisation and afterwards, until the vessel is used.

Because the foil is opaque, it is also the quickest way to protect light-sensitive solutions. Silver nitrate, some indicator solutions and chlorophyll extracts are often wrapped in foil, and the same trick makes a dark treatment in plant experiments, such as covering part of a leaf in the starch-test practical.

Foil can be folded into small weighing boats or trays, used to line a surface that will be heated, or wrapped around a sample being dried. It does react with strong acids and alkalis, including sodium hydroxide solution, so it should not be used as a cover where it will touch those reagents.

Common Laboratory Uses

• Capping flasks, test tubes and media bottles before autoclaving or dry-heat sterilisation.
• Wrapping light-sensitive reagents and extracts, and covering parts of leaves in starch-test experiments.
• Folding quick weighing boats for solids on a top-pan balance.
• Wrapping glass pipettes and instruments for dry-heat sterilisation when no metal container is free.
• Covering beakers to reduce evaporation or contamination during short storage.

Care & Handling

• Store the roll dry and in its carton, so the edge is not crushed or torn.
• Use a fresh piece for each sterile cap; creased, reused foil tears and leaves gaps.
• Keep foil away from strong acids, alkalis and mercury salts, which attack aluminium.
• Never put foil in a microwave oven or let it touch live electrical terminals, since it conducts electricity.

Specifications

Why Choose LabEquip

Microbiology labs, school preparation rooms and plant-science classes get through an aluminium foil roll steadily, so it is usually ordered with other consumables at the start of term. It pairs with reusable Petri dish boxes for dry-heat sterilisation, and LabEquip handles consumable orders from the General Lab Products range through the contact page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can aluminium foil go in an autoclave?

Yes. Aluminium foil tolerates steam sterilisation and is widely used to cap flasks and tubes before autoclaving. Press it around the neck so it stays in place during the cycle; it is not airtight, so steam can still reach the inside.

Is foil suitable for dry-heat sterilisation in a hot-air oven?

Yes. Aluminium melts at about 660 °C, far above the temperatures used for dry-heat sterilisation, so foil is a common wrapping for pipettes, instruments and glassware sterilised in a hot-air oven.

Which side of the foil should face the sample?

For laboratory purposes it makes no practical difference. The shiny and dull sides differ only because of how the last pass through the rolling mill is made, and both behave the same chemically.

Can foil be used with acids or alkalis?

Avoid contact with strong acids and alkalis. Sodium hydroxide solution reacts with aluminium and gives off hydrogen, and hydrochloric acid dissolves it. Use a glass or plastic cover where the reagent could touch the cap.

Why wrap a solution in foil instead of using an amber bottle?

An amber bottle is the usual long-term store, but foil blocks light completely and can be wrapped around whatever vessel is in use, such as a beaker on a stirrer, a flask during an experiment or a burette during a titration with silver nitrate.

How is foil used in the starch-test practical?

A strip of foil is folded over part of a leaf on a destarched plant, which is then left in the light. When the leaf is later tested with iodine, the covered part stays free of starch, showing that light is needed for photosynthesis.

Last Updated: September 2026