Universal handheld micropipette

The handheld micropipette is the most ubiquitous instrument for precision handling of microliter-milliliter liquid volumes, which is an essential capability in biology and chemistry laboratories. The range of one pipette is typically adjustable up to 10-fold its minimum volume, requiring the use and maintenance of multiple pipettes for liquid handling across larger ranges. Here we propose a design for a single handheld pipette adjustable from 0.1μl to 1000μl (i.e., 104-fold) which spans the range of an entire suite of current commercial pipettes. This is accomplished by placing anelastic diaphragm between the existing pipette body and tip, thereby de-amplifying its native volume range while maintaining its simple manual operating procedure. For proof-of-concept, we adapted a commercial pipette (100 –1000μl nominal range) with a selection ofrubber sheets to function as the diaphragms and confirmed the accuracy and precision of drawn volumes are within international ISO-8655 standards across the entire 104-fold volume range. The presence of the diaphragms introduces a nonlinear mechanical behavior and a time-dependency due toheat transfer, however, by model andexperiment, these are redressed so as to maintain the pipette ’s accuracy and precision.

Source: Review of Scientific Instruments - November 14, 2016 Category: Physics Authors: Justin Beroz and A. John Hart Source Type: research