Pipette, Pipettors and Tips
Pipettes (pipets) and pipettors (pipetters) are hand-held liquid transfer devices used in the laboratory for the uptake, delivery and dispense of liquid samples. They fall into several categories.
- Dropping pipettes (or transfer pipettes) and Pasteur pipettes. For smaller, drop-by-drop qualitative liquid transfers where precision is not critical. These pipettes may be made from reusable glass supplied with a rubber bulb teat, or else made from one-piece disposable plastics such as HDPE
- Serological pipettes, normally sterile and graduated, are made from glass or plastic and are used in tissue culture or clinical environments for the accurate handling of liquid volumes from 1mL to 100mL
- Volumetric, one-mark graduated and calibrated pipettes are used for the extremely precise handling of liquid volumes from 0.5mL to 50mL during titrations and production of standard solutions
- Pipettors (sometimes called micropipettors) are piston-driven devices which withdraw and dispense volumes typically ranging from 0.5μL to 5mL by air or positive displacement. Pipettors may be manually or electronically operated. Fixed volume pipettors dispense a specified volume within given tolerances, adjustable volume pipettors can be adjusted to dispense various volumes within a given range. Pipettors may also be single-channel, or multichannel for the simultaneous time and labour-saving dispense of multiple aliquots of liquid into, for example, autosampler vials or microplates
- Pipettors are normally used with disposable plastic tips, which may be ‘universal’ for general purpose use, or else specialised for biosciences, gel loading or with integral filters to protect the device from contamination with harmful droplets or vapour during use.
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