When purchasing a pipette, it’s always advisable to do your research to make sure that you’re making the best decision possible. Pipettes are important equipment in any lab and that’s why you need to shop around for the best value and quality.
First and foremost, you need to decide what kind of micro pipettes you want. There are different kinds of pipettes depending on your needs. Some of the available types are- transfer pipette, multichannel, positive displacement, air displacement, electronic, and controller.
Transfer pipette. It’s a disposable one-piece pipette that’s better than a Pasteur pipette because you don’t have to find the right bulb or be exposed to the hazards of broken glass.
Multichannel. Lab technicians dealing with many samples will find multichannel pipettes highly beneficial.
Positive displacement. This pipette is ideal for viscous, dense, corrosive, and radioactive samples. It’s also used in applications such as DNA and PCR amplification techniques.
Air displacement. Used for normal pipetting applications or aqueous samples as it gives more accurate results.
Electronic Pipettes. They are easy-to-use and they increase productivity. Electronic pipettes are used for standard applications including pipetting plasma.
Controller. This type of pipette is an alternative to a transfer pipette or a rubber bulb pipette. It dispenses maximum volume and gives accurate aspiration. The controller pipette is used to extract liquid from a tube and bottle with the help of a serological pipette.
Next, you need to consider the following differences between the various kinds of pipettes to decide which one you need.
- The Lab’s Workload
Depending on the type of workload the pipettes will be used for, you can choose between electronic and manual. An electronic pipette comes with useful features such as a motorized piston and a digital display. Moreover, it’s consistent with preset systems to control dispensing or aspiration. All these features come in handy when you’re dealing with tons of workload that need superior replicability and consistency.
If, on the other hand, you don’t require your pipette repeatedly and on a large-scale basis, you may find that the cost of an electronic pipette outweighs its benefits. A manual pipette is cheaper and a good fit if you do not have any use for the special features of an electronic pipette.
- Pipette Volume
Do you require pipettes for multiple tasks? Then you’ll need pipettes that have different volumes. A pipette with fixed volume is the ideal choice if you’re carrying out the same tasks repeatedly as it has the best accuracy.
It’s important to bear in mind that, unless your pipette is solely for a single volume application, you’ll need to buy several pipettes with variable volumes.
- Microtiter Applications
Many labs extensively use microtiter plates. The labs also use multichannel pipettes to attain the highest level of efficiency and productivity. From an ergonomic perspective, multichannel pipettes are easier to use because they need less pipetting in general. Every time you use a pipette, there is a likelihood of a mistake or inaccuracy; a multichannel pipette significantly minimizes this margin of error.