Sharing lab supplies always has the potential to cause strife—especially in university and research settings, where most reagents and lab supplies are in perpetually short supply.

We’ve found pipette tips are a key source of tension. People avoid racking them, put off autoclaving them, and are perpetually annoyed by tips’ tendency to trap a bead of water.

Two ways to reduce the pipette-based lab supply conflicts:

1. Adopt a good autoclave procedure to assure dry(er) pipette tips.
2. Take advantage of your autoclave’s custom programming options (including assisted cooling, temperature ramps, and post-cycle vacuum)—especially Delayed Start functions. You can run a load overnight, and create perfect conditions for full sterilization and dry lab supplies.

Of course, if you need perfectly dry, reliably sterile tips at a moment’s notice, you can always stock pre-racked sterile tips—just don’t over-buy (or autoclave them unnecessarily 😉):

Mistakes were made. Using an unfamiliar university ordering system, I somehow purchased 1200 pounds of serological pipettes that took up 4 shipping pallets. #oops somehow my 5 cases request became 285 cases, for each of several size pipettes. pic.twitter.com/VEheHnvdjf

— Daniel Bolnick (@DanielBolnick) August 31, 2018

One way or another, no lab supplies last forever. Pipette tips pose special disposal challenges.

Need a good general template for your red-bag waste autoclave procedure? We’ve got you covered there, too.