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Are you planning an important experiment, perhaps with rare or precious substances? Do you need to ensure that the pipette used measures correctly? As we all well know, pipettes get dropped and parts wear out. It's therefore recommended to verify the performance of your pipette by doing a gravimetrical Pipette Quick Check on your laboratory balance, also referred to as a Pipette Test or Performance Test. This is an excellent way to ensure the accuracy of your data and reduce overall failure risk.
Why is it important to check your pipette’s performance?
Up to 35 % of pipettes sent to a service provider for calibration are out-of-specification, based on an East Coast Pharma study 1998-2003. If your pipette is one of these, does it mean you have to invest a lot of time and effort investigating which analyses could have been affected? What's the risk of your experiments leading to faulty results?
How can you avoid this? Reduce pipetting risk and perform regular pipette quick checks to uncover any malfunctions early and eliminate surprises at your next calibration service.
It's an easy straightforward process on your laboratory balance.
Do you tend to skip pipette tests because you think they're difficult to perform? If so, then this guide is for you. Let us show you how easy it is! All you need is a balance, a vessel, or even better - an evaporation trap, some deionized water and our free guide with practical tips and an SOP included.
What to Consider When Performing a Pipette Quick Check? 5 Practical Tips.
Gravimetric pipette checks entail dispensing samples of distilled water into a receiving vessel which is set on an analytical balance.
Find out why you should work in an environment that’s free from drafts, direct sunlight and vibration, and why it's important to consider evaporation loss during a gravimetric check, and how to minimize this by using an evaporation trap.
For each of the following 5 important prerequisites, we've put together some helpful practical tips to ensure the process is successful:
- Environment
- Pipette and Tips
- Test Liquid
- Balance
- Weighing Vessel and Evaporation
Discover why dishes or large 100 ml beakers, which are often used for pipette checks, are not suitable weighing vessels. The guide provides experimental data about parameters which determine the rate of evaporation, e.g. that the larger surface of the liquid in a vessel is, the higher is the respective evaporation.
To minimize evaporation loss during weighing, particularly with small volumes (< 50 μl), a weighing vessel with a lid should be used and, if possible, an evaporation trap.
How to Perform a Quick Check? SOP with 10 Steps.
Apply the SOP included in the new guide, quickly uncover any malfunctions and remove failing pipettes from your routine laboratory work.
All you need is a balance, a vessel, or even better - an evaporation trap, some deionized water and our free guide with 5 Practical Tips
and an SOP included.
