What are the types of Pipette?

Pipettes can be classified depending upon:

1. As per Working Principle

• Air Displacement Pipette: In an air displacement pipette, a small air cushion exists between the piston and the liquid solution during the process. These kinds of micropipettes are extremely precise for a wide range of piping applications.

• Positive Displace Pipette: With a positive displacement pipette, a piston replaces the air cushion and glides along the inner edges of the capillary for easy pipetting of viscous, dense and surfactant liquids.

2. As per Operation Mechanism

• Mechanical Pipette: These pipettes are manually operated based on a piston-shaft spring mechanism.

• Electronic Pipette: Electronic pipettes are more accurate than pipetting manually and mostly automated. Electronic micropipettes remove the hand control one has over the pipette. The volume is set electronically, and with the push of a button, the plunger moves up and down electronically, leaving no room for human error.

3. As per number of Channels

• Single Channel Pipette: A single channel pipette is one that has a single channel to aspirate or dispense the liquid.

• Multi Channel Pipette: A multi-channel pipette has multiple channels to aspirate or dispense the liquid. It is commonly available in 8 channel, 12 channel and 16 channel variants.

4. As per Volume or Capacity

• Fixed Volume Pipette: In a fixed volume Pipette, the volume of the liquid to be aspirated or dispensed remains constant. These micropipettes are used when the same amount of liquid has to be dispensed multiple times.
• Variable Volume Pipette: This micropipette comes with a specific minimum and maximum volume range. The amount of liquid to be aspirated or dispensed can be adjusted (within the volume limit of the micropipette) based on the user’s requirement.