Plastic cuvette for UV spectrum - Could be used? (Aug/11/2005 )

Hi all,


Just a small question. I'm wondering if we can use a plastic cuvette to measure RNA/DNA concentration in UV spectropphotometre and why?

Thankyou

You can use plastic cuvettes, but they have to be rated for A260/ A280. (Some of the newer ones, not so many of the older ones). The manufacturer would know.

Nope, don't know why. Hopefully someone else can tell us.

Nicole

Depends on what type of plastic it is. We have like a billion individually-packaged plastic Eppendorf cuvettes that hold 2mL and work fine. Basically, they allow wavelengths of 200-1000nm or something to pass through (those numbers are off the top of my head after trying to remember what I read on the packaging). Not all plastics are compatible for UV spec

-Hank

Thank you,


I was used to use quartz cuvettes for UV measurements and plastic cuvettes for visible light measurements. So, I wondered if there a reason behind this specification. If we can use plastic one for UV measurements, so there no need to investigate in Quartz , which is hyper expensive !

The quartz are super expensive, but if you purchase the disposable Eppy cuvettes that I described above they average out to around $1 per cuvette. That will add up after awhile!

-Hank

So, this is only why quatz is used ! I mean to avoid a repeat purchase for plastic cuvette, we investigate once forever ?!

Get rid of your cuvettes entirely, and switch to the Nanodrop. You won't look back.
... Just a very happy customer.

We're having a demo of the nanodrop system in a week or so, is it really this good? It looks promising I have to say.

Oh.. Nanodrop!! Frankly speaking I never had good experience with it.... I usually get different results for same DNA... may be if ur DNA conc is too much nano will go awry!!

Actually, because each plastic cuvette costs $1, we usually wash and reuse them maybe 5 times before throwing away. That Nanodrop spec sounds pretty interesting. Can anyone give me a rough estimate of the cost? I hate having to request quotes.

-Hank