Every vial should be looked at twice: once when it arrives, and once each time it is about to be used. The inspection takes under a minute and catches the failures that testing cannot, because testing happened before the vial was shipped, stored, opened and handled. This is the routine.
Set-up
Good, even lighting; a matte black card and a matte white card; the vial at eye level. Hold the vial by the neck or base so fingerprints do not obscure the contents, and give it a gentle swirl, not a shake, before looking (shaking creates bubbles that mimic particles).
Sealed vials: seven checks
- Flip-off cap. Present, seated, undamaged. A missing or loose cap on a vial that has never been used means the stopper surface has been exposed and the vial may have been opened.
- Crimp (ferrule). Flat, tight, no lift, tears or rotation. The crimp is the seal; any defect here fails the vial.
- Glass or plastic body. No cracks, chips, stress lines or scuffs at the neck. Turn the vial through a full rotation.
- Fill level. Consistent with the other vials in the tray. A low vial may have leaked; a high one may be mislabeled.
- Clarity. Against the black card, look for fibers, specks, flakes or haze; against the white card, look for color. Bacteriostatic water is clear and colorless. See particulate matter testing for what the lot was tested against.
- Label. Product name, preservative and concentration, fill volume, lot number, expiration date, all legible and matching the tray and the certificate of analysis.
- Dates. Expiration date not passed; remaining shelf life adequate for the planned use.
Opened vials: four more checks
- First-puncture date written on the vial, and the 28-day discard date not passed. An undated opened vial is discarded. The discard-date calculator does the arithmetic.
- Stopper. No visible coring, cracks or a residual channel; no crust or residue on the surface.
- Clarity and color, repeated as above. Contamination after opening usually shows first as faint haze.
- Odor, noted only if obvious when the vial is near the face. Fresh benzyl alcohol has a faint, mild aromatic smell; a pronounced almond odor indicates oxidation to benzaldehyde and the vial is discarded. See can bacteriostatic water go bad.
Pass and fail
| Observation | Action |
|---|---|
| All checks pass | Use; return to carton after use |
| Cap missing or crimp defective on a sealed vial | Discard; report lot number to supplier |
| Crack or chip | Discard; if in a tray, inspect neighbors for glass fragments |
| Haze, particles, fibers, color | Discard; do not filter |
| Almond odor | Discard |
| Past expiration or past 28-day discard date | Discard |
| Label illegible or lot mismatch with COA | Quarantine; contact supplier |
Record it
At receipt, note the inspection outcome, date and initials against the lot in the inventory log; see lot traceability. At the bench, the first-puncture date on the vial is the record. A failed vial is set aside with its lot number, not thrown straight in the waste, until the supplier has been notified and the rest of the lot checked.
Storage rules that keep vials passing inspection are in how to store bacteriostatic water.
All BAC Water Supply products are supplied for laboratory research use only and are not for human or veterinary use.