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Ultra-Low Volume Dispense Head
At the core of the NT8 is an eight-channel nanopipettor that reliably dispenses drops from 50
nL to 1.8 µL with CVs averaging 5%. The NT8’s pipette tips feature a very small geometry and a
hydrophobic coating, ensuring precise dispensing across the full range of buffers and reagents
encountered in protein crystallization.
The low volume head uses liquid displacement pipetting, which means the tips can be quickly
washed from the inside out and reused, or discarded for zero cross-contamination.
The small geometry of the tips results in small dead volumes. The total dead volume for the
NT8 is less than 3 µL, depending on the viscosity of the ingredient.
Flexible Finger Technology
In order to ensure that drops wick to the crystallization plate, all eight tips must touch the
plate. To achieve this, each tip is attached to a flexible finger that can /- 0.5 mm
vertically, enabling the dispense head to contour to each dispense surface. Each tip also has a
sensor that indicates when the tip contacts a surface. These sensors allow the NT8 to drive
down precisely to the point where all tips touch the plate.
Plate Copy Dispensing
The NT8’s plate copy option, used for creating daughter plates from deep well blocks,
automatically loads tips and can aspirate and dispense up to 200 µL from the block to either
one or two daughter plates.
Equipped with eight individual pressure sensors, the plate copy head accurately detects when
each tip contacts liquid, allowing the NT8 to aspirate from just below the liquid surface. This
feature prevents viscous liquids from coating the outside of the tips and dripping while in
transit to the dispense location.
Key Features
