Choosing a Laboratory Water System

Laboratories with mixed quality water requirements would do well, therefore, to source water systems that reflect water usage. Incurring the unnecessary cost of ultrapure water for less-critical operations should be as unthinkable as compromising on quality for highly sensitive assays.

Conclusion

A water production system supporting analytical methods in food laboratories needs to reflect a firm’s use of different water quality grades and workflow. For most food laboratories that means providing ultrapure water for highly-sensitive assays, as well as lower-cost pure-grade water for less critical operations. Labs that use both pure and ultrapure waters may purchase two separate systems – one for each grade – and hope for the best after plumbing them together. However, most food analytical labs would do better to acquire a single system that produces both grades of water from inexpensive tap water.

The importance of “water-on-demand” cannot be over-stressed for analytical laboratories, especially those performing sensitive assays that may be compromised by low-quality water. On-demand sources of pure and ultrapure water assure that water quality will not change over time due to introduction of gases, particles, or solutes. Single-source systems also provide the greatest level of convenience, and in the long run economy as well.

Greg Crescenzi is business development manager and Joseph Plurad is marketing communications manager for Millipore Corp.’s Bioscience Division (Danvers, Mass.). Reach Crescnezi at 978-762-5312 or [email protected]. Plurad can be reached at 978-762-5370 or [email protected].