INTEGRA products improve pipetting of non-aqueous liquids

INTEGRA Biosciences is dedicated to developing innovative solutions that improve liquid handling for all, including applications using non-aqueous liquids.

These can be challenging to pipette accurately, as they are commonly viscous or volatile, or have other characteristics that make them difficult to handle. INTEGRA has tested the most common non-aqueous solutions using its VIAFLO electronic pipettes, providing users with recommendations for the best tips and optimal settings to improve pipetting of liquids such as DMSO, glycerol, ethanol and Tween^® 20.

Experiments suggests that use of reverse pipetting – aspirating more liquid than you need, then discarding the excess after dispensing – greatly improves pipetting of these solutions, increasing reproducibility by minimizing the influence of effects such as evaporation in the tip, attachment of liquids to the tip wall, or air bubble formation in the sample. In addition, it is vital to adjust pipetting speeds to the liquid to improve precision. The aspiration/dispense speed of the VIALFO can be set to eliminate the variability associated with manual pipettes. It is also important to use the correct tips when pipetting these challenging samples, and INTEGRA offers its GripTip pipette tips in both low retention and wide bore formats to aid pipetting of viscous liquids. By following these suggestions, users can set up their pipettes faster, requiring less testing to achieve optimal results.

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