The most used piece of laboratory equipment, in any laboratory setting, is the pipette. This useful and extremely important tool is used in nearly every area of scientific, medical, biotech, pharmaceutical, and chemistry laboratory around the world today. From the simple plastic transfer pipette to the ultra-precise automated pipetting system, laboratory pipettes have found an important niche in the scientific disciplines.
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The transfer pipette is one of the most used pipettes in any scientific industry. These pipettes are manufactures in variable sizes, and can be graduated for rough measurement of liquids. They are usually made of polyurethane, and have a flexible plastic bulb for drawing up liquids. You can purchase sterile, individually wrapped pipettes for many uses.
Laboratory Rainin Pipette Tips pipettes will always be in use in every laboratory where fast or precision measurement and delivery of fluids is needed. Even simple disposable transfer pipettes are being graduated, for precise transfer of fluids, and for quick measurement of analytes and reagents. This is effective for the fast-moving laboratory, and can be useful for STAT procedures as well. Transfer pipette come in many volumes, from 1 ml up to 20 ml transfer syringes. Purchases of large amounts of these pipettes lend convenience to the large volume laboratory.
Graduated glass pipettes are needed for the precision pipetting of fluids for reagent setup or culture mixing. These precision pipettes can be vacuum assisted to eliminate mouth aspiration. Glass graduated pipettes can be sterilized via autoclave, without concern for variations in volume due to high temperatures, by the use of high-annealed glass products such as Pyrex. Plastic graduated pipettes are a one-time use solution for the laboratory on the go. These useful pipettes can be used once and disposed of; creating an environment that reduces cross-contamination of specific cultures or reagents.
Precision pipette systems have been used for decades, but now the precise nature of pipette systems today are computer chip controlled, lending to a much more reliable method of fluid transfer. These newer systems give such precision that most biotech and pharmaceutical disciplines need them. Disposable plastic pipette tips are used in conjunction of handheld pipetting devices that utilize a piston-type aspiration and delivery system. There are also autopipette systems that use diaphragmatic aspiration and delivery via computer control, giving the digital age a foothold on the market.
Bench top pipette systems for the precision delivery of reagents and chemicals into test tubes or cuvettes are in use at a high level, as they give convenience for the laboratory personnel. This method can be used for large volumes of chemicals that get large usage during shifts, and most of these pipetting systems can be easily refilled. Other pipetting systems are available for large volumes, such as those needed for mass chemistry analysis procedures.
Robotic pipette systems are used by many biotech laboratories for the automation of many processes that would otherwise take up personnel time. This increases productivity, and can result in mass testing procedures. These automated robotic systems can be set up on conveyor systems for easier delivery of chemicals and fluids.
The pipette systems of the future will not need much improvement, since the pipettes used today satisfy the world's laboratories needs.
In the life sciences laboratory environment, there are few pieces of equipment which see more use than a multichannel pipette and along with it, pipette tips.
Of course, pipettes are common instruments in any laboratory or quality control department where the workload demands the frequent handling of small volume liquid samples. These instruments are extremely commonly used in the pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food and beverage production and other industries as well as in clinical research applications.
The pipette is an instrument with a long history of use and an equally long history of continual advancement in design, ergonomics and usability; today's pipettes often feature digital controls which allow for the high precision measurement of extremely low volumes of liquids which is absolutely essential in the modern laboratory environment.
The Multichannel pipette is of course one of the biggest innovations in the design technologies behind these nearly ubiquitous instruments, permitting laboratory personnel to greatly increase throughput in the lab. Along with the pipettes themselves, pipette tips have come a long way, being better designed to provide a tighter seal and easier placement on as well as ejection from the instrument itself.
While many whose work does not take place in a laboratory environment may be familiar with pipetting only through the single channel variety of the instrument, perhaps during a cursory course on chemistry, those who have made lab work their career use a much wider variety of pipetting instruments.
Many laboratories deal with very high volumes of samples, requiring that many different samples can be tested simultaneously. This calls for sample trays which can accommodate a very large number of samples; and a multichannel pipette is of course the instrument of choice in these laboratories, saving untold amounts of time in a high throughput lab environment. Along with these instruments, a large number of pipette tips are gone through in a single day.
Since laboratory personnel must deal with installing and ejecting such a large number of tips from their pipetting instruments on a daily basis, the design of these tips is something which is continually in progress. Tips which require less force to install and eject save a great deal of time as well as wear and tear on the hands of laboratory workers, something which anyone who spends the bulk of their day pipetting can certainly appreciate.
The state of the art in multichannel pipette instruments as well as in the area of improved pipette tips is always being advanced in order to provide for more efficient, ergonomically improved and even more ecologically friendly solutions for the laboratory environment. One of the newer innovations in the field is biodegradable packaging for tips, an issue which many laboratory workers in the life sciences have long been concerned about; given the high volumes of tips they use, a great deal of attention has been paid to reducing the environmental impact of these laboratory items.
Innovations continue to be made in liquid handling instrument technologies for the lab; making the next generation of scientific and medical breakthroughs a little easier on the people who spend their days working with a multichannel pipette, pipette tips and other pipetting equipment.