Guide to Choosing Pipette Tips

Small but mighty aptly describes the role of pipette tips in biomedical research—they are, after all, a seemingly modest component but they play an outsized role in the lab. In this article, we explore key factors that researchers should consider when selecting pipette tips including compatibility, sterility, ergonomics, and packaging. We will also take a look at the different types of specialty tips and highlight offerings from five leading pipette tip manufacturers.

To ensure we included the most valuable, accurate, and timely information, we consulted with experts from prominent companies including Gilson, Greiner Bio-One, INTEGRA Biosciences, Rainin (a division of Mettler Toledo), and Sartorius. Their product managers offered invaluable insights and recommendations that can help you make informed decisions that can contribute to successful outcomes in your lab.

Pipette tip basics

Pipette tips are available in various types, including standard, low retention, filter, and specialty tips designed for specific applications (see Table 1 below). Most tips are primarily composed of polypropylene, with some featuring special coatings or additives to enhance performance. Sterility is a crucial factor, with options ranging from non-sterile tips for routine work to pre-sterilized tips for sensitive applications. Quality assurance in pipette tip manufacturing involves strict controls, including dimensional checks, pressure testing, and volume calibration to ensure consistency and accuracy. Finally, proper packaging is vital for maintaining sterility and protecting tips during transportation, with options including bulk, racked, and individually wrapped formats to suit different needs.

13 important factors to consider when choosing pipette tips

Selecting the right pipette tips is crucial for accurate and reliable laboratory work. The following list was provided by our experts and will help you accelerate your decision-making process.

1. Compatibility: “Choose pipette tips that are compatible with your pipettes to guarantee a proper fit and achieve accurate results in your laboratory experiments,” explains Patrik Salminen, Product Manager at Sartorius.

“Manufacturers usually recommend using pipette tips of the same brand as the pipette. This is because the pipette and tip can be considered a system that provides the best performance when selected as recommended by the manufacturer. It is key to ensure that the tips are compatible with the specific model of the pipette and have been calibrated accordingly,” adds Florence Ho Fuh Fu Ye, Product Manager, Consumables at Gilson.

2. Quality of materials: “Opt for pipette tips made from superior materials and produced in a contamination-free environment to maintain high quality and reliability in your lab work,” Salminen says.

According to Chris Mauracher, Group Product Manager at INTEGRA Biosciences, “High-quality tips are made from virgin polypropylene that is free from plastic and/or metal additives that could contaminate your samples. Checking that a manufacturer doesn't use metal additives is especially important when buying colored tips, as metal additives can often be found in dyes.”

Equally important is the injection molding machine. “The slightest batch-to-batch or within batch variations—such as differences in straightness, molding flash, or streaking—negatively impact the accuracy and precision of your results. These irregularities often can't be seen by the naked eye, so it is better to avoid buying the cheapest tips on the market, to reduce the risk of inaccurate and imprecise results,” Mauracher cautions.

3. Volume suitability: “The volume range of your pipette tip and pipette can have an impact on both accuracy and precision. Air displacement pipettes and their corresponding tips show the best performance between 35% and 100% of their nominal volume. The closer your dispense volume is to the total volume of the pipette tip, the better your results. Below 35%, the volume of dead air in the pipette tip becomes quite large, and the risk of inaccurate and imprecise dispensing increases. On top of that, pipetting within the optimal volume range is less technique dependent and reduces user-related errors,” Mauracher explains.

4. Type and volume of liquid you're working with: “Is it aqueous, viscous, volatile, corrosive, possibly contaminated, hot or cold? The liquid properties and the desired volume will help define what pipette to use and, therefore, what pipette tips,” notes Ye.

5. Sample integrity: “The environment you work in and your application will also guide the tip choice, as you may choose non-sterile or sterile pipette tips. Some applications may require pipette tips certified free of nucleic acid, nucleases, pyrogens, or endotoxins. These cleanliness levels can be critical to maintaining sample integrity during the liquid handling process and at the analysis point,” adds Ye.

“Importantly, 'sterile' does not necessarily guarantee freedom from contaminants such as DNA, RNase, or PCR inhibitors. Tips produced and tested under strict cleanliness standards ensure freedom from RNase, DNA, DNase, ATP, pyrogens, PCR inhibitors, trace materials, trace organics, proteins, and proteases. These measures help prevent false results and experimental variability,” explains Brandon Miller, Senior Product Manager at Rainin.

6. Sterility: If you need sterile tips for your application, it's better to buy sterile tips instead of autoclaving them yourself, states Mauracher. See the expert tips below for more on DIY sterility.

7. Low retention properties: “Specialized resin formulations or surface treatments can significantly reduce sample hold-up, maximizing the recovery of precious samples. This is vital for molecular biology, protein research and other applications where every microliter matters,” explains Miller.

“When producing low retention pipette tips, manufacturers typically use either a different polypropylene blend to their standard tips, or add a silicone coating. Both techniques prevent viscous or low surface tension liquids from spreading out and 'wetting' the inner wall of the tips, however, the latter has one major disadvantage—a silicone coating can wash or leach out with your sample. So, you should always choose pipette tips with a polypropylene blend offering heightened hydrophobic properties to ensure that liquid-repellents can't contaminate your samples, adds Mauracher.

8. Filter options: Filter tips prevent aerosol contamination, making them ideal for sensitive workflows like PCR, qPCR, and cell culture. “It’s important to ensure that filters are made of pure polyethylene, as filters containing cellulose fibers have been shown to inhibit PCR,” notes Miller.

9. Certifications: “Ensure your pipette tips come with certifications that verify the manufacturing processes and purity, providing confidence in their quality and safety for laboratory use,” Salminen says.

10. Ergonomics: Select pipette tips that support the ergonomics of your pipette, helping to reduce user fatigue and improve precision during repetitive tasks. Jens Gaiser, Product Manager at Greiner Bio-One, specifically recommends look at loading and ejection forces to avoid repetitive strain injury.

11. Packaging type: Tips come in various types of packaging, including bulk packs, racked tips, and individually wrapped tips. “The packaging should be chosen according to your bench space and storage capacity, your lab's workflow, and your budget,” explains Ye.

12. Sustainability: For pipette tips, sustainability involves waste reduction through packaging and design, as well as the implementation of refill systems and local production to minimize environmental impact. Additionally, the use of innovative materials further enhances their eco-friendliness, says Gaiser.

13. Cost vs. quality balance: Budget considerations are crucial. “Higher-quality or specialized tips may cost more, but they offer better performance and maintain the sample integrity,” says Ye. “This is key for maintaining the precision and accuracy of your pipetting. Low-quality pipette tips can lead to incorrect volumes and inconsistent results.”

Expert tip: The pitfalls of DIY tip sterilization

“It's common sense that sterile pipette tips should be used for applications where sterility is important. But can you buy non-sterile tips and autoclave them yourself to save money? In theory, the answer is yes,” explains Mauracher from INTEGRA. “However, you need to make sure that the manufacturer declares them as autoclavable, and be aware of the following:

• Lack of quality control. Tip manufacturers validate their sterilization process, and perform regular quality checks. In contrast, individual labs don't usually test the effectiveness of their autoclaving process, which can lead to contaminated samples.
• Autoclaved tips aren't free of RNase and DNase. Tips you’ve autoclaved yourself are sterile, which means that they are free from living organisms, but not necessarily free from DNA or endotoxins. Actually, your autoclave may be a super-spreader of such contaminants, depending on what the previous user sterilized. If you need to perform sensitive assays, you should opt for sterile pipette tips from a manufacturer who can certify that their tips are free of RNase and DNase.
• Filtered tips use polyethylene filters, which melt during autoclaving. Never autoclave filtered tips.”

Table 1. Types of specialty pipette tips

Table 2. Some pipette tips from leading companies