Innovative Pump Solves Microplate Dispensing Problems

KD Scientific's use of an innovative Ceramic Piston Pump eliminates problems associated with peristaltic pumps in bulk reagent dispensing and provides high repeatability and accuracy across many microplates.

The NEW UltraSpense 2000 applies a positive displacement piston pump to laboratory and production dispensing reducing many hurdles in automating dispensing in microplates.

While many automated liquid handling solutions for microplates use different technologies, they often are very costly - ranging from $20,000 to $200,000. This can be beyond the budget of many laboratories. As an alternative, peristaltic pump dispensers have made major in-roads into the lower end applications in the sub $20,000 price market.

While peristaltic pump based dispensers have overcome many of the burdens associated with manual or electronic pipetting, the required replacement tubing and cartridges make them expensive to maintain. During operation, the tubes stretch and deform affecting the accuracy and repeatability.

The UltraSpense 2000 eliminates these problems by using a positive displacement pump with only 1 moving part. The inherent accuracy of the UltraSpense 2000 system delivers consistent volumes across a wide range of viscosities. The internal pump surfaces are as hard as sapphire and resist wear by materials suspended in the fluids being dispensed.

Since the pump is a positive displacement system with a fixed volume per rotation, the pump is self-metering and provides precision of better than 0.5% CV over 84 million operations.

This improved technology is simple to use and saves in operating and maintenance costs. With the savings compared to peristaltic pumps being so significant, the UltraSpense 2000 is paid for in as little as 12 months.