Does anyone know any suppliers for 96/384 well fully-glass microplates/multiwell plates? I found some on Chem glass but having trouble finding others…
Hi Tim,
I’ve seen glass-coated plates from Thermo and glass inserts for microplates from VWR. All are 96-well format though…
Hope this helps!
-Eric
Hi there Eric! Thank you! Yes I am familiar with those, and with the inserts, in this case I’ve been looking for fully glass plates. I have my reasons although the inserts are definitely an interesting alternative.
1 Like
If you find anything, please share with the forum! I am particularly interested in SBS-sized glass reservoirs in case anyone has come across those.
1 Like
I haven’t seen reservoirs, but those strike me as the easier type to injection mold - so a custom manufacturer could likely do it at scale. I am less certain that 96/384 glass microplates actually can be made via injection molding. Here is the 96-well plate I had seen, in case it works for your application: CG-1910 - PLATES, GLASS, REACTION, 96-WELL- Chemglass Life Sciences
Just curious, what is the application/use case for glass microplates? Chemical compatibility issues that plastic can’t handle?
Yes, we’re doing chemistry in 96/384 well plates, and the reusability of glass & chemical robustness of glass versus polypropylene is a big plus. They presumably could also be used to grow cells, but then there is that whole question of surface treatment (poly-Lysine coated? Been a while since I’ve done adherent cell work)
1 Like
Ah I see. Have you tried this?
https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/3850
I’m not sure what the cap material would be but at least the tubes are glass. As a bonus you could only use the tubes you need rather than all 96 wells in the Matrix plate.
Yep! Have been considering inserts (see above discussion with Eric)
Hello, Tim.
Here are two sources for glass 384-well plates:
https://www.zinsserna.com/reactor_plates.htm
https://www.analytical-sales.com/product/384-well-glass-microplate-24µl-volume-per-well/
But you may also want to try glass-coated plates from different vendors:
https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/60180-P342
Thanks @ guenthej! The Zinsserna & Analytical-Sales links look very interesting.
As for the glass coated plates, Thermo claims they have a special / extra thick / special composition silica coating. So, in that case, think I’d probably stick with the Thermo plates - if its only a few 100 nm thick, then yeah good materials science and good QC really matters.
Speaking of glass microplates, do glass tips that work on automated pipettes exist? Maybe a crazy idea, but maybe more reusable than plastic.
1 Like
I personally have never seen glass pipette tips. I have an expectation that, part of the reliability of liquid handler pipettes being able to put on pipette tips, is that polypropylene does have some flexibility, so it can be a friction fit. No clue if this would work with glass. Also would be kind of a bummer when the liquid handler crashed to have a bunch of glass pieces everywhere.
I’d barring those concerns, I’d be really curious if they even could be manufactured at all. Not familiar enough with glass manufacturing to say if it possible.
1 Like
The Biomek Span-8, Tecan EVO liquid-LiHa, Tecan Fluent liquid-FCA, and PerkinElmer JANUS can all use stainless steel fixed tips. At least for the Tecan robots, these are available with a PTFE (Teflon) coating.
The Phoenix robot from Art Robbins Instruments is marketed for use handling organic solvents, but I’ve only used it for protein crystallography.
Hi @TimFallonUCSD
Check out Hellma Quartz Plates. They are expensive but should last forever.
https://www.hellma.com/en/laboratory-supplies/quartz-microplates/