The vials, also known as phials, are relatively small glass vessel or bottle, especially used to store medication as liquids, powders or in other forms like capsules. These are an important accessory in the scientific instruments industry. The vials are also broadly used as sample vessels, for instance, their use in auto-sampler devices in analytical chromatography. Thus the vials are quite necessary as one of the important scientific instruments.
The glass used to manufacture vials can be colorless or colored, and also clear or amber. The vials are available with different types of closure systems. There are screw vials that are closed with screw cap or dropper/pipette, and Lip vials which are closed with cork or plastic stopper. Similarly are the crimp vials that are closed with a rubber stopper and a metal cap. Most of the vials can be found in a tubular shape or a bottle-like shape with a neck. This varies according to the usage. There are vials, which have usually flat bottom unlike test tubes that have usually a rounded bottom. Today, vials are even manufactured in plastic, mostly polypropylene. Such kind of vials can have other closure systems like a flip-top/snap cap.
