Thermo Scientific GENESYS 10S Vis, User Manual

Page: 118 / 134

22
Maintenance
Routine Care
110 GENESYS 10S Vis User Guide Thermo Scientific
Cleaning and Maintaining Cells
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 Suggested Cleaning Methods
Aqueous Protein, Biologics, DNA • Warm water with detergent
• Dilute nitric acid (<10%) rinse
• Copious water rinse
Aqueous Salt solutions • Dilute nitric acid (<10%) rinse
• Copious water rinse
Aqueous Basic solutions • Warm water with detergent
• Dilute nitric acid (<10%) rinse
• Copious water rinse
Organic Hydrocarbons, small molecules, oils • Rinse with organic solvent
• Warm water with detergent
• Dilute nitric acid (<10%) rinse
• Copious water rinse
Organic Alcohol solutions • Rinse with similar alcohol,
acetone, or other solvent
• Copious water rinse