How Pippets Revolutionize Laboratory Efficiency

1. Inconsistent Pipetting Volume

• On the top of the list, but pretty common, is inconsistent liquid transfer. You may have calibrated the pipette at 100 µL, but sometimes it transfers 90 µL or 110 µL instead. This can be due to improper pipetting technique, a worn seal, or an uncalibrated pipette.
• Solution: Maintain regular calibration of your pipettes, follow good pipetting practices when dealing with tips, such as prewetting the tip and pipetting on an angle. Use high-precision pipette tips like AHN, as they can also reduce variance.

2. Air Bubbles in the Pipette Tip

• Air bubbles ruin the accurate movement of liquids and affect data variability in the experiment. The air bubbles result from aspirating thick liquids or not immersing the pipette tip deeply enough.
• Solution: One general way to prevent air bubbles from forming is to immerse the tip well into the liquid before aspirating, dispense slowly to avoid cavitation, and prewet the tip when working with thick solutions.

3. Loss of Sample Volume

• If you have mislabelled the volume you needed or used incorrect pipetting techniques, then you might lose or waste samples. This issue is more serious when working with limited or expensive reagents.
• Solution: Doublecheck the volume set before pipetting, practice reverse pipetting for low-volume transfers, and ensure recovery after/during dispensing.

4. Leakage and Liquid Retention

• Certain liquids promote sticking onto the pipette tip, causing loss of volume and inaccurate results. Also, tips that do not fit well could leak during dispensing.
• Solution: Use the low-retention pipette tips to minimize liquid retention. Be sure the tips are firmly attached onto the pipette to prevent liquid from flowing out, and ensure pipette accuracy during pipetting.

5. Calibration Issues

• Daily pipetting calibrations are an important step in enabling pipetting accuracy. Over time, there comes a point where the pipette’s calibration will drift due to gradual volume variances.
• Solution: Implement a periodic calibration and maintenance schedule to keep pipettes performing optimally. The AHN myPette has calibrated pipettes that can be performed with much less effort designed for long-term precision.

6. Choosing the Right Pipette Tips

• Wrong pipette tips interfere with volume accuracy and ergonomic efficiency. It is usually difficult for most lab professionals to differentiate between the sizes of the different tips, which makes the situation more frustrating and results in an increased possibility of error.
• Solution: Be sure to utilize manufacturer-recommended tips to match with your pipette type. To further precision and ecological ingenuity, AHN has brought precision-fit pipette tips like Ecofriendly paper racks that save up to 60% of associated plastics wastes.

7. Forgetting Steps in a Protocol

• Repetitive and lengthy pipetting procedures may lead to steerable steps to q be emitted, thus possibly affecting the outcome of any experiments.
• Solution: Use checklists and electronic pipette with memory as a way to avoid human error.