[ELI5] Why do all chemistry/biology labs have that black stone as the bench top?
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I believe it’s epoxy granite, or something equivalent. It’s silicon dioxide, or quartz, basically, which is extremely inert. A 100% stone bench top however would be inappropriate due to it’s hardness and how it would risk glassware breaking just from setting it down on the surface. Stone also has a few minor chemical weaknesses; mainly very strong alkalis. Epoxy and most other plastics, are both quite soft and resilient to most alkali. So if you grind the stone to dust, and then bind it together with a polymer, you get a material that is very strong, smooth, has high damping which is gentle on glassware, and is resistant to almost every chemical in existence. Quite ideal for a chemistry lab.
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