Cleaning And Maintaining Cells - Thermo Scientific Orion AquaMate 8000 UV-Vis User Manual

23
Maintenance
Routine Care

Cleaning and Maintaining Cells

120 Orion AquaMate 7000 Vis and Orion AquaMate 8000 UV-Vis
Carefully check the condition of the cuvettes and other cells used to measure samples. If they
are chipped, cracked or scratched, it is important to discard the damaged cell(s) and replace
them with new ones.
Ensuring your cuvettes are clean both inside and out is important to the quality of your results
for two reasons: 1) contaminating material may absorb light resulting in falsely high
absorbance readings; and 2) contaminants in the cell may react chemically with subsequent
reagents or standards introduced into the cell.
Cleaning methods depend to some extent on the nature of the contaminating material. It is
important to identify the residual material in the cell that needs to be removed. Refer to the
following table for suggestions on cleaning methods, solvents and material.
Solvents Examples
Aqueous Protein, Biologics, DNA
Aqueous Salt solutions
Aqueous Basic solutions
Organic Hydrocarbons, small molecules, oils
Organic Alcohol solutions
Suggested Cleaning Methods
• Warm water with detergent
• Dilute nitric acid (<10%) rinse
• Copious water rinse
• Dilute nitric acid (<10%) rinse
• Copious water rinse
• Warm water with detergent
• Dilute nitric acid (<10%) rinse
• Copious water rinse
• Rinse with organic solvent
• Warm water with detergent
• Dilute nitric acid (<10%) rinse
• Copious water rinse
• Rinse with similar alcohol,
acetone, or other solvent
• Copious water rinse
Thermo Scientific