It's better to use separate dishes for chemistry and for cooking, even if it's just for measuring ingredients. Have you ever cooked something tomato-based in a plastic bowl, such as Tupperware™? If so, you know it takes an act of God or else some serious cleaners to get the tomato stain out of the container. The plastic is relatively porous, so after you rinse your dish you can expect residual molecules of whatever you cooked to remain. Metal cookware is even more reactive. In some cases, cooks take advantage of this property to affect the foods that they prepare. For example, if you cook an acidic sauce in an iron skillet, you can increase the iron content of the food (also will corrode your pot a bit). If you whip eggwhites in a copper bowl, the protein in the egg will form a complex with the copper, stabilizing the eggwhites in a reaction that even alters the color of the food.
Glassware, like Pyrex™, tends to rinse cleaner than wood, plastic, or metal, but you will still get some absorption into your dishes. Most chemicals you would use in a home chemistry lab should be sufficiently innocuous that you won't contaminate future meals if you clean and rinse the dishes after your project, but there are some notable exceptions. Don't use your dishes for any reaction involving heavy metals or any deadly poison... period.
Another point to keep in mind is that you can absorb harmful chemicals from your dishes. Leaded crystal is beautiful, but you really don't want to store orange juice in the refrigerator in a leaded glasses pitcher (unless you want lead in your juice). Don't store wine in leaded pewter stemware. Watch longterm exposure to certain natural woods. Don't haphazardly store foods in plastics, which can transfer toxic monomers to your foods or stabilizing chemicals, like heavy metals. The bottom line is this: the materials in dishes aren't inert. They can absorb and transfer materials you place in them and chemicals from the container can be transferred to your food.
Do I use cookware for home projects? Yes and no. I'll do projects involving food, like growing sugar crystals or making a baking soda volcano or making a rainbow density column. If I make slime or a smoke bomb I'll use dishes, but I'll be careful to rinse them immediately so that no one accidentally eats borax or saltpeter. Reviewing home chemistry projects on this site, I'd be comfortable doing most of them using my dishes, but there are exceptions. For example, I wouldn't make green fire in cookware. I wouldn't perform any chemistry demonstration recommending a fume hood in my kitchen or using my cookware.
Source: http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryfaqs/f/kitchenchem.htm
Glassware, like Pyrex™, tends to rinse cleaner than wood, plastic, or metal, but you will still get some absorption into your dishes. Most chemicals you would use in a home chemistry lab should be sufficiently innocuous that you won't contaminate future meals if you clean and rinse the dishes after your project, but there are some notable exceptions. Don't use your dishes for any reaction involving heavy metals or any deadly poison... period.
Another point to keep in mind is that you can absorb harmful chemicals from your dishes. Leaded crystal is beautiful, but you really don't want to store orange juice in the refrigerator in a leaded glasses pitcher (unless you want lead in your juice). Don't store wine in leaded pewter stemware. Watch longterm exposure to certain natural woods. Don't haphazardly store foods in plastics, which can transfer toxic monomers to your foods or stabilizing chemicals, like heavy metals. The bottom line is this: the materials in dishes aren't inert. They can absorb and transfer materials you place in them and chemicals from the container can be transferred to your food.
Do I use cookware for home projects? Yes and no. I'll do projects involving food, like growing sugar crystals or making a baking soda volcano or making a rainbow density column. If I make slime or a smoke bomb I'll use dishes, but I'll be careful to rinse them immediately so that no one accidentally eats borax or saltpeter. Reviewing home chemistry projects on this site, I'd be comfortable doing most of them using my dishes, but there are exceptions. For example, I wouldn't make green fire in cookware. I wouldn't perform any chemistry demonstration recommending a fume hood in my kitchen or using my cookware.
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Source: http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryfaqs/f/kitchenchem.htm
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