The beral pipette is a flexible plastic tube, without measurements, used in laboratory applications that require the transfer of solutions without precision.
This type of pipettes is composed of a single piece of plastic, generally made of polyethylene, and has a protrusion at the top that functions as a small liquid retention chamber.
Beral pipettes are similar to Pasteur pipettes in terms of their basic shape. The most representative difference consists in the manufacturing material, since Pasteur pipettes are made of glass.
The popularity of Beral pipettes in the medical and research fields is on the rise, since being made of plastic they do not break, and their use is much safer than that of Pasteur pipettes.
Characteristics of the beral pipettes
Beral pipettes are also known as transfer pipettes or disposable pipettes, since they are usually used one or very few times, and then discarded.
In essence, these are disposable drippers. Beral pipettes can be sterilized and reused on a maximum of two or three occasions, after which it is recommended to discard them.
Some of the most representative characteristics of the beral pipettes are:
- They are made of low-density polyethylene, that is, flexible plastic.
- The specialized treatment of this plastic resin makes it possible for the surface of the beral pipettes to be slip resistant, which facilitates the handling of this type of elements with surgical gloves.
- They are not toxic. They also do not react chemically with acids, biological components or other types of solutions.
- They can be sterilized with ethylene oxide or some quaternary ammonium salt.
- They support a temperature range between –196 ° C and 90 ° C.
- Sometimes it has slight graduations (marked measurements) on the stem of the pipette. However, it is not recommended for use when exact fluid transfers are required.
Applications
Beral pipettes are commonly used in medical laboratories or in the execution of various scientific tests.
Some of the uses for Beral pipettes today are as follows:
- They are used to extract human blood samples when managing laboratory tests. Pipettes used for these purposes are typically small and tailored to sample collection tubes.
- They are also used in the medical field in the handling of specialized diagnostic equipment. In this type of applications, mini-pipettes are usually used, whose capacity ranges between 1 and 4 milliliters, approximately.
- Beral pipettes are commonly used in conducting scientific research, to transfer liquids or samples onto analysis plates, for example. Here, fine-tip pipettes perform excellently.
- Its constitution withstands extreme exposure conditions. For example: they can be frozen with liquid nitrogen or used to subject their content to accelerated aging tests in an oven at 45 ° C.
References
- Beral Pipets, Graduated, Pkg. of 500 (sf). Recovered from: flinnsci.com
- Transfer Pipettes Catalog. Globe® Scientific Inc. Recovered from: globescientific.com
- Ridley, J. (2011). Essentials of Clinical Laboratory Science. Delmar-Cengage Learning, Inc. Canada.