Funnel

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Funnel

A funnel is a pipe with a wide, often conical mouth and a narrow stem. It is used to channel liquid

Liquid

Liquid is one of the principal states of matter. A liquid is a fluid that has the particles loose and can freely form a distinct surface at the boundaries of its bulk material....
or fine-grained substances into containers with a small opening. Without a funnel, much spillage would occur.

Funnels are usually made of stainless steel

Stainless steel

In metallurgy, stainless steel is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10% chromium content by mass. Stainless steel does not stain, corrode, or rust as easily as ordinary steel , but it is not stain-proof....
, glass

Glass

Glass generally refers to a Hardness, brittle, transparency amorphous solid, such as that used for windows, many Glass Bottles, or eyewear, including, but not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovite , or aluminium oxynitride....
, or plastic

Plastic

Plastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic chemistry solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products....
.

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Encyclopedia

A funnel is a pipe with a wide, often conical mouth and a narrow stem. It is used to channel liquid

Liquid

Stainless steel

Glass

Plastic

Plastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic chemistry solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products....
. The material used in its construction should be sturdy enough to withstand the weight of the substance being transferred, and it should not react with the substance. For this reason, stainless steel or glass are useful in transferring diesel

Diesel

Diesel or diesel fuel in general is any fuel used in diesel engines. The most common is a specific fractional distillation of petroleum fuel oil, but alternatives that are not derived from petroleum, such as biodiesel, biomass to liquid or gas to liquid diesel, are increasingly being developed and adopted....
, while plastic funnels are useful in the kitchen. Sometimes disposable paper

Paper

Paper is thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
funnels are used in cases where it would be difficult to adequately clean the funnel afterwards (for example, in adding motor oil to a car). Dropper funnels, also called dropping funnel

Dropping funnel

A dropping funnel is a type of laboratory glassware used to transfer fluids. They are fitted with a stopcock which allows the flow of to be controlled....
s or tap funnels, have a tap

Tap (valve)

A tap is a valve for controlling the release of a liquid or gas. In the British Isles and most of the Commonwealth the word is used for any everyday type of valve, particularly the fittings that control water supply to bathtubs and sinks....
to allow the controlled release of a liquid.

The term "funnel" is sometimes used to refer to the chimney

Chimney

A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside Earth's atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the stack effect....
or smokestack on a steam locomotive

Locomotive

A locomotive is a Rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin language loco - "from a place", Ablative case of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine,....
or a ship

Ship

A ship is a large watercraft that floats on water. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size. Ships may be found on lakes, seas, and rivers and they allow for a variety of activities, such as the ferry or cargo ships, fishing, cruise ship, Coast guard, and warship....
. There is also a type of spider

Spider

Spiders are air-breathing chelicerate arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae modified into fangs that inject venom. In their bodies the usual arthropod segments are fused into two Tagma , the cephalothorax and abdomen, joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel....
known as a funnel-web

Funnel-web spider

Funnel-web spider can refer to:* Araneomorph funnel-web spider, the modern funnel-web spider, suborder Araneomorph* Venomous funnel-web tarantula, a primitive funnel-web spider, suborder Mygalomorphae...
due to its habit of building its web in the shape of a funnel. The term "funnel" is even applied to other seemingly strange objects like a smoking pipe

Pipe

selfref|For Wikipedia guidelines on the use of "pipe links", see...
or even a humble kitchen bin

BIN

Bin and similar can mean:*A kind of...
.

Laboratory funnels

There are many different kinds of funnels that have been adapted for specialized applications in the laboratory. Filter funnel

Filter funnel

A filter funnel is a laboratory funnel used for separating solids from liquids via the laboratory process of filter .In order to achieve this, a disk shaped piece of filter paper is usually folded into a cone and placed within the funnel....
s, thistle funnels (shaped like thistle

Thistle

Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterised by leaf with sharp prickles on the margins, mostly in the plant family Asteraceae....
flowers), and dropping funnel

Dropping funnel

A dropping funnel is a type of laboratory glassware used to transfer fluids. They are fitted with a stopcock which allows the flow of to be controlled....
s have stopcocks which allow the fluids to be added to a flask slowly. For solids, a powder funnel with a wide and short stem is more appropriate as it does not clog easily.

When used with filter paper

Filter paper

Filter paper is a semi-permeable paper barrier placed perpendicular to a liquid or air flow. It is used to separate fine solids from liquids or air....
, filter funnels, Buchner and Hirsch funnels can be used to remove fine particles from a liquid in a process called filtration

Filtration

Filtration is a mechanical or physical operation which is used for the separation of solids from fluids by interposing a medium to fluid flow through which the fluid can pass, but the solids in the fluid are retained....
. For more demanding applications, the filter paper in the latter two may be replaced with a sintered glass frit.

Separatory funnel

Separatory funnel

A separating funnel, also known as separation funnel, separatory funnel, or colloquially sep funnel, is a laboratory glassware used in liquid-liquid extractions to separate the components of a mixture between two miscible solvent phases of different density....
s are used in liquid-liquid extraction

Liquid-liquid extraction

Liquid-liquid extraction, also known as solvent extraction and partitioning, is a method to separate compounds based on their relative solubility in two different miscible liquids, usually Water and an solvent....
s. You use this piece of equipment in science.

Construction

Glass is the material of choice for laboratory applications due to its inertness compared with metals or plastics. However, plastic funnels made of nonreactive polyethylene

Polyethylene

Polyethylene or polythene is a thermoplastic commodity heavily used in consumer products . Over 60 million tons of the material are produced worldwide every year....
are used for transferring aqueous solutions. Plastic is most often used for powder funnels which do not come into contact with solvent in normal use.

In culture

The inverted funnel is a symbol of madness. It appears in many Medieval depictions of the mad. For example in Hieronymus Bosch's

Hieronymus Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch was an Early Netherlandish painting Painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The artist's work is well-known for the use of fantastic imagery to illustrate moral and religious concepts and narratives....
The Ship of Fools

Ship of Fools (painting)

Ship of Fools is a painting by Hieronymus Bosch which shows prodigal humans wasting their lives by playing cards, drinking, flirting, eating, etc....
and The Allegory of Gluttony and Lust

Allegory of Gluttony and Lust

Allegory of Gluttony and Lust is a Hieronymus Bosch painting made sometime between 1490 and 1500. It is currently in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut....
.

In popular culture, the Tin Woodman

Tin Woodman

The Tin Woodman is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by United States author L. Frank Baum. Baum's Tin Woodman first appeared in his classic 1900 book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and reappeared in many other The Oz Books....
in L. Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum was an United States author, poet, playwright, actor and independent filmmaker, best known today as the creator, along with illustrator W....
's classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's literature novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W.W. Denslow. It was originally published by the George M....
(and in most dramatizations of it) uses an inverted funnel for a hat, though that is never specifically mentioned in the story - it originated in W.W. Denslow's original illustrations for the book.

Funnel

Laboratory funnels

Construction

In culture

See also