Material of the pipette tip

Release Time:

2025-04-30

Tips, like bullets for a gun, are indispensable accessories for pipettes. Theoretically, the quality of the tips also has a significant impact on the accuracy of pipetting.

Tips, like bullets for guns, are indispensable accessories for pipettes. Theoretically, the quality of the tips greatly affects the accuracy of pipetting, and their importance is no less than that of the pipette itself. However, the status of tips in China is quite awkward—most users would rather spend a high price on high-quality pipettes than use better tips (this phenomenon is very common in government-affiliated institutions such as universities, research institutes, and hospitals). Therefore, the reliability of data produced under such circumstances inevitably needs to be discounted—of course, this is also a characteristic of China.

Currently, pipette tips on the market are basically made of polypropylene plastic (a chemically inert, colorless, transparent plastic with a wide temperature range). However, even with polypropylene, the quality can vary greatly: high-quality tips are generally made from virgin polypropylene, while cheap tips are likely made from recycled polypropylene plastic (in which case, we can at most say that their main component is polypropylene). In addition, most tips have small amounts of additives added during manufacturing, commonly including: 1. Colorants. The so-called blue tips (1000 µl) and yellow tips (200 µl) on the market are polypropylene mixed with corresponding colorants (hopefully high-quality color masterbatches rather than cheap industrial pigments); 2. Release agents. These help the tips quickly separate from the molds after forming. Of course, the more additives, the higher the probability of unwanted chemical reactions during pipetting. So it is best to have no additives! But because this requires higher production technology, tips without any additives are extremely rare on the market.