lids?

[Bisy]

wine jugs have aluminum lids with paper liner, all jugs have some kind of plastic or rubber seal. I love the glass bottles with a ceramic top and metal release mechanism, but the rubber washers deform and deteriorate, so that's not good. is ptfe 2 the only suitable material? or is there a kind of silicone that's acceptable?

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Depends what exactly you're using with any given material. If you know what reagents and solvents you'll be using you can check it out on a compatibility chart. I'll dig one out in the coming days if you can't find the link here on the forum - this isn't a new question!

Platinum-cured silicone is pretty robust for the most part. You can replace the rubber seals that you mention with silicone ones with a reasonable assurance of safety if it's just plain ol' lye and naphtha they'll be seeing.