Difference between Sterile and Non-Sterile Pipette Tips

Tips, also known as pipette tips and pipette nozzles, include sterile and non-sterile pipette tips, etc. And they effectively form a protective structure between the pipette and the sample, ensuring the safety of the sample and sub-sample, the following is a brief introduction to sterile vs. non-sterile pipette tips :

What is Sterile vs. Non-Sterile?

Sterile means free from any and all germs and germs, as well as microorganisms.
Non-sterile simply means that not sterile or treat during manufacture to eliminate all potential microorganisms.

Sterile vs. Non-Sterile Pipette Tips in definition:

1. What are non-sterile pipette tips?

Pipette tips are made from high-purity pure polypropylene, but in short, non-sterile tips are likely to carry contaminants compared to using sterile pipette tips
But it does not necessarily mean that the product is Contaminated, it simply means that its contents were not sterilized or treated during manufacture to eliminate all potential microorganisms.
Designed non-sterile tip racks with a durable hinged lid for easy access during use, providing great convenience.

2. What are sterile pipette tips?

Sterile pipette tips do not contain bacteria or any living microorganisms
Although sterile manual pipette tips by autoclaving without additional flow restrictors. Bacteria, there will still be pollutants affecting the experimental results.

Sterile vs. Non-Sterile Pipette Tips in usage:

1. Why use sterile pipette tips?

Sterilizing pipette tips in the laboratory may alter liquid handling performance, leading to variations in experimental results.
Therefore, the vast majority of users, especially those in high-throughput laboratories, use the provided sterile tips
And remove organic and inorganic contaminants unauthorized to not affect reaction conditions and experimental results
Inadvertent contamination of certified pipette tips into liquid samples. Contaminants can adversely and unpredictably affect enzyme activity and lifetime, intermolecular interactions, spectrophotometric and column chromatography analyses, and more.
But this may not be possible with pipette tips for most automation platform liquids.

2. How to sterile and use pipette tips?

Some companies will autoclave pipettes, they will indicate autoclave in the manual and on the pipette.
Please take a look. The pipette is rarely sterilized, unless it is used for some special operations, such as RNA Extraction, etc.
If you are worried about contamination and do not autoclave the pipette, clean the head of the pipette with 75% ethanol. Use 75% ethanol without RNase contamination for RNA extraction.

Why do you need newspapers for tip sterilization?

Should place in the tip box for moist heat sterilization. 121 degrees, 15-20 minutes. In order to avoid water vapor trouble, you can wrap the tip box with newspaper, or put it in an incubator to dry after sterilization.

Why is the tip box wrapped in newspaper for sterilization during autoclaving?

The second is to avoid too much water, it can absorb water, and the most important thing is to prevent re-contamination! But if you don’t wrap it, it will not have much impact. If there is more water after sterilization, you can put it in the oven for a longer time!

Should the entire pipette be sterilized when extracting RNA?

Generally does not need to sterile the gun! If it is really necessary, put it on a clean bench and irradiate it with ultraviolet light for half an hour!
Matters needing attention in pipette tip sterilization during RNA extraction

How to choose sterile and non-sterile pipette tips？

Let’s talk about the taper first: if it is better, it will match the gun very well, and the suction will be more accurate;
Concentricity: Concentricity refers to whether the suction nozzle of the tip and the circle between the tip and the pipette are perpendicular to the same center. If not, it means that the concentricity is not good;
Finally, the most important one is our adsorption: adsorption is related to the material of the tip. If the material of the tip is not good, it will affect the accuracy of pipetting, resulting in a large amount of liquid retention or referred to as For hanging on the wall, causing errors in pipetting

There are also introduces about the function of disposable pipette tips, what is sterile filtered pipette tips, etc.