What Is A Good Centrifuge Tube

There are thousands of consumables in laboratories and the ones that everyone is familiar with may be those consumables, such as centrifuge tubes, which people used in conjunction with centrifuges and are unavoidable consumables!

15ml centrifuge Tube Sterilized 2ml Microcentrifuge tubes

There some introduces about what is a good centrifuge tube:

1. According to the material of the centrifuge tube:

  • centrifuge tubes are above two categories: glass and plastic centrifuge tubes.
  • And made of plastic and can be subdivided into PP, PC, PS, etc. According to different needs, manufacturers will choose different plastic materials for production.
  • Use plastic more because in high-speed or ultracentrifuges not use glass centrifuge tubes
  • Plastic centrifuge tubes are PP (polypropylene), PC (polycarbonate), PE (polyethylene), and other materials
  • The performance of PP pipe is better
  • The plastic centrifuge tube is transparent or translucent and  seen the centrifugation of the sample with the naked eye  can be
  • Easy to deform and has poor corrosion resistance to organic solvents, so the service life is short
  • People often commonly use plastic and glass centrifuge tubes in laboratories to finish their experimental
  • Therefore, laboratories generally buy centrifuge tubes frequently to their need

2. According to the capacity of the centrifuge tube:

  • Centrifuge tube volume is 1.5ml, 2ml, 5ml, 10ml, 15ml, plastic centrifuge tubes 50ml, etc.
  • The above specifications, like 10ml and 15 ml centrifuge tubes are more popular.
  • Divided into round bottoms and pointed bottoms, as well as screw caps and plug caps according to their shape.
  • Centrifuge tubes with screw caps have thinner graduations and only have an indication of the overall capacity of the cap.
  • If your centrifuge is equipped with 30ml or other-size centrifuge tubes, you need to consider imported ones.

Summarize the following properties of common plastic materials in a centrifuge tube:

  • PP (polypropylene): translucent, with good chemical stability and temperature stability, but it will become brittle at low temperatures, not lower than 4 ℃ during centrifugation.
  • PC (polycarbonate): good transparency, high hardness, and high-temperature sterilization, but polycarbonate centrifuge tubes are not resistant to some organic solvents such as strong acids, alkalis, and alcohol.
  • PE (Polyethylene): Opaque. It does not react with acetone, acetic acid, hydrochloric acid, etc., is relatively stable, and is easy to become soft at high temperatures.
  • PA (Polyamide): This material is a polymer of PP and PE materials, translucent, very stable in chemical properties, and not resistant to high temperatures.
  • PS (polystyrene): transparent, high hardness, but corroded by various organic substances, mostly for low-speed centrifugation, generally one-time use.
  • PF (polyfluorene): translucent, used at low temperatures, and the experimental environment is -100°C-140°C
  • CAB (Acetate Butyl Cellulose): Transparent, users used for gradient determination of dilute acid, alkali, salt, alcohol, and sucrose.

There are some introduces about what is a microcentrifuge tube, the type of centrifuge tubes, etc.