# Autoclaving Pipettes: What You Need to Know Before You Sterilize You can autoclave a pipette only if its manufacturer explicitly rates the pipette, or the specific parts you plan to steam, as autoclavable, and even then the pipette must be disassembled per the manual and recalibrated afterward. The rule of thumb is simple: if the body or the manual says autoclavable, steam it disassembled. If nothing says autoclavable, keep the pipette out of the chamber and decontaminate it chemically instead. That single decision protects two things at once. It protects your samples from a pipette that is not actually sterile, and it protects the pipette from heat damage that silently ruins its accuracy. This article walks through what autoclaving does inside a pipette, which options you have when full autoclaving is off the table, how to run the cycle correctly, and how each choice affects accuracy, calibration, and day-to-day pipetting technique. ## What autoclaving actually does to a pipette An autoclave kills microorganisms with moist heat. In a standard gravity cycle, the chamber fills with saturated steam at 121 °C and roughly 15 psi above atmospheric pressure, held for 15 to 20 minutes after the load reaches temperature. Moist heat at these conditions denatures microbial proteins far more efficiently than dry heat, which is why a steam cycle sterilizes in minutes where a hot-air oven needs an hour or more at much higher temperatures. That same steam attacks the materials inside a micropipette. A typical air-displacement pipette contains a plastic handle, a metal piston, polymer seals and O-rings, a spring, grease on the piston, and a nose cone that grips the tip. Sustained exposure to 121 °C steam can do the following: - Soften and re-stress plastic components, especially thin shafts. - Dry out or displace the thin film of silicone grease that keeps the piston moving smoothly. - Compress and permanently deform rubber or elastomer seals and O-rings. - Drive water vapor into crevices that then need a full drying cycle to clear. - Accelerate corrosion on any plated or marginal steel parts if the steam carries additives or the water supply is poor. None of this means autoclaving is bad for pipettes. It means autoclaving is a controlled stress that only some pipettes are engineered to survive, usually for a defined number of cycles. Manufacturer technical documentation for modern laboratory micropipettes typically states either "fully autoclavable," "autoclavable shaft or lower part only," or "not autoclavable," and often quotes a cycle of 121 °C for a fixed holding time. That document is the authority. No general rule overrides it. One more distinction matters before we go further. Sterilization means the complete destruction of all viable microorganisms, including spores, and only a validated physical or chemical process achieves it. Disinfection means reducing the microbial load on a surface to a level that is safe for your purpose, which is what wiping with alcohol or exposing something to UV light actually does. A wiped pipette is decontaminated, not sterile. Confusing these two words is one of the most common errors in sample preparation, and it shows up later as contamination that no one can trace. ## Can you autoclave a pipette? The three tiers of autoclavability The answer to "can you autoclave a pipette" depends on which of three categories your pipette falls into. Before you categorize yours, know the part names, because manuals use them precisely. - **Handle and body.** The upper housing you grip, containing the plunger mechanism, spring, and ejector. - **Shaft and nose cone.** The lower assembly, often detachable, that enters the vapor space above your samples and grips the tip. The nose cone is the very end that makes the seal with the tip. - **Piston, seals, O-rings, and grease.** The internal moving parts that generate the air cushion for air-displacement pipetting. **Tier 1, fully autoclavable.** Many current models from the major manufacturers are designed so the entire pipette, sometimes with minor disassembly, can go through a standard 121 °C cycle. The housing plastics, seals, and lubricants are chosen for repeated steam exposure, and the manual usually states a maximum number of cycles before seals and grease should be serviced. This is the easiest case, and the pipette comes out ready for reassembly and a quick calibration check. **Tier 2, partially autoclavable.** This is the most common case in real labs. The manufacturer approves autoclaving of the shaft, nose cone, and sometimes the tip ejector, while the upper body and its spring stay out of the chamber. You remove the lower assembly, steam it, let it cool and dry, and reinstall it. Because the shaft is the part that actually enters your samples and can wick liquid up its outside, this tier addresses the contamination risk that matters most. **Tier 3, not autoclavable.** Some pipettes, particularly older models, electronic pipettes with internal circuitry, and certain multi-channel designs, must never see the autoclave. Steam warps their housings, attacks their seals, and in electronic models destroys the electronics. For these, your sterile option is decontamination of the outside plus sterile consumables, described below. How do you find out which tier applies? Three places, in order of authority. 1. The instruction manual that shipped with the pipette. It will state exactly which parts tolerate autoclaving, at what temperature, for how long, and whether parts must be removed first. 2. The manufacturer's website. Every major pipette maker publishes this in the product specifications and downloadable manuals. 3. The pipette body itself. Many housings carry an embossed or printed autoclave symbol or text near the shaft collar. If you cannot find any of these, treat the pipette as not autoclavable. Guessing costs either a ruined instrument or a false sense of sterility. ## Your options at a glance Because "can you autoclave a pipette" usually hides a second question, "how do I get a sterile pipette," the table below lays out every practical option side by side. The rest of the article examines each one in detail, with pros and cons. | Option | What gets sterilized | How it works | Best for | Main drawback | |--|--|--|--|--| | Autoclave the whole pipette | Entire instrument | Steam at 121 °C, pipette disassembled per manual | Labs with fully autoclavable models and a validated cycle | Seal and grease wear, recalibration needed afterward | | Autoclave the shaft or nose cone assembly | Lower part only | Detach lower assembly, steam it, reinstall | The most common situation, older pipettes with approved lower parts | Upper body remains only decontaminated, not sterile | | Chemical surface decontamination | Exterior surfaces | Wipe with 70% ethanol or isopropanol, or fresh 10% bleach followed by a water wipe | Non-autoclavable pipettes, quick turnaround between tasks | Decontamination only, not sterilization, misses internal surfaces | | UV decontamination | Exposed exterior surfaces | 254 nm germicidal lamp in a hood or UV cabinet | Routine overnight reduction of surface load in biosafety cabinets | Line-of-sight only, weak against spores, damages some plastics over time | | Sterile disposable or filter tips | The fluid path | Use certified sterile tips, ideally with aerosol-resistant filters | Most [molecular biology](/blog/careers/molecular-biology) work, PCR setup, RNA work | Does not address a contaminated pipette body or nose cone exterior | | Reusable glass or serological pipettes, pre-sterilized | The instrument or consumable itself | Autoclave dry glass pipettes in cans, or buy individually wrapped sterile pipettes | Volumetric work, [cell culture media](/knowledge/diagnostics/microbiology/cell-culture-media-a-guide-to-selection-and-optimization) handling | Different workflow from micropipettes, breakage risk with glass | The core decision rule this table supports: match the sterilization method to the manufacturer's rating, and never substitute surface decontamination for sterilization when your assay actually needs sterility. ## Option 1, autoclaving the whole pipette ### How it works For a fully autoclavable pipette, the manufacturer expects the complete instrument to withstand a standard steam cycle. You typically loosen or remove the shaft assembly as the manual directs, since steam must reach all interior surfaces, place the parts in a breathable autoclave pouch or a covered but vented container, and run a gravity or vacuum-assisted cycle at 121 °C. After the cycle, the load dries, the parts cool fully at room temperature, and you reassemble. ### Pros - Complete coverage. Every surface the steam reaches, including the interior of the shaft, is sterilized, not just the outside. - No chemical residue. Alcohol or bleach wipes can leave trace residues that matter in sensitive assays. Steam leaves none. - Audit-ready documentation. If your lab runs spore strip or indicator validation on its cycles, a fully autoclaved pipette fits cleanly into a documented sterilization program. - Simple to train. New staff learn one procedure and apply it to every approved instrument. ### Cons - Seal and grease wear. Every cycle compresses seals and can strip lubricant. Manufacturers that rate their pipettes as autoclavable also specify a service interval, often after a stated number of cycles, when seals and O-rings should be replaced and the piston regreased. - Accuracy drift. Thermal stress and seal deformation shift the pipette's delivered volume. This is why calibration after autoclaving is not optional, as explained below. - Downtime. Between disassembly, a full cycle, drying, cooling, reassembly, and checking, a pipette can be out of service for hours. Labs that autoclave daily keep a rotation of spare instruments. - Wrong for non-rated pipettes. This option exists only for models whose manuals approve it. Putting a Tier 2 or Tier 3 pipette in whole can warp the housing and destroy the calibration permanently. ## Option 2, autoclaving only the shaft or nose cone ### How it works This is the workhorse option for labs with mixed pipette stocks. You follow the manual's disassembly procedure, which for many models means unscrewing or unclicking the lower shaft assembly, sometimes removing O-rings or a seal first, then autoclaving only those approved parts. The body with its spring and mechanism stays on the bench and gets a chemical wipe. ### Pros - Protects the mechanism. The spring, piston counter, and electronics, where present, never see heat or moisture, so their service life is unaffected. - Targets the highest-risk surfaces. The shaft and nose cone are the parts that dip nearest your samples, contact aerosols, and touch the inside of tip boxes. Sterilizing them addresses the realistic contamination route. - Works with older stocks. Many pipettes built before full-autoclave designs became standard still carry an autoclavable lower part, which lets a lab upgrade its contamination control without replacing instruments. - Cheaper consumable strategy. Because only the lower assembly undergoes wear, seal replacement is needed less often than with whole-instrument cycling. ### Cons - Not whole-instrument sterility. The upper body is wiped, not sterilized. In practice this is acceptable for most work because the upper body never contacts liquid, but it is a real limitation for the strictest applications. - More handling, more error. Disassembly and reassembly are manual steps, and reassembling incorrectly, such as seating an O-ring twisted or over-tightening the shaft, causes leaks and volume errors. - O-ring and seal management. Each autoclave cycle ages the O-rings on the shaft. Labs need a small stock of spares and a habit of inspecting seals during reassembly. - Requires model-specific knowledge. The disassembly sequence differs between brands and even between generations of the same brand. A generic procedure can crack a shaft collar or lose a washer. ## Option 3, chemical surface decontamination ### How it works For pipettes that cannot enter the chamber, decontaminate the exterior. The standard routine is to remove the tip, wipe or spray the whole outside with 70% ethanol or 70% isopropanol, let it air dry, and for higher-risk contamination follow with a wipe of freshly prepared 10% household bleach solution, then a clean water wipe to remove bleach residue, since bleach corrodes metal and degrades plastics over time. Many manufacturers sell decontamination solutions or state approved agents in their cleaning documentation, and some housing materials are specifically chosen to resist common laboratory disinfectants. ### Pros - Fast. Two minutes at the bench between tasks. - Safe for every pipette. No model is harmed by a correct wipe-down, so this is the universal fallback. - Compatible with electronics. Electronic and multi-channel pipettes, which must never be autoclaved, tolerate surface decontamination well when the agent is applied to a cloth rather than sprayed into openings. - Removes organic residue. A wipe physically lifts residues that steam would merely bake onto surfaces. ### Cons - Decontamination, not sterilization. Alcohol wiping reduces the microbial load dramatically but does not reliably kill bacterial spores, and it cannot reach interior surfaces at all. - Coverage depends on the operator. Missed seams, the gap under the ejector arm, and the shaft threads are exactly where residue hides. - Repeat exposure degrades some plastics. Certain polymers become brittle or discolored under frequent alcohol or bleach exposure, which is one reason manufacturers publish approved cleaning agents. - False confidence. Teams sometimes wipe a pipette and then treat it as sterile. It is not. If your protocol genuinely requires a sterile instrument, only steam sterilization of approved parts, or a factory-sterilized alternative, delivers that. ## Option 4, UV decontamination ### How it works Germicidal ultraviolet lamps, typically emitting at 254 nm, are built into many biosafety cabinets and can be purchased as small benchtop UV cabinets for pipettes. Ultraviolet light damages microbial DNA, so leaving decontaminated pipette exteriors under the lamp for an extended period, commonly overnight in a closed cabinet, reduces the viable surface load. ### Pros - Hands-off. Load the cabinet, close it, walk away. - Good for shared spaces. A UV cabinet gives every user in a shared lab a consistent decontamination step without chemicals. - No heat, no moisture. Safe for non-autoclavable bodies and most electronics, provided the manufacturer approves UV exposure. ### Cons - Line of sight only. UV does not bend around shadows. The underside of the pipette, the inside of the shaft, and any crevice the lamp cannot see remain untreated. - Weak versus spores and some viruses. UV doses achievable in routine cabinets do not match the lethality of steam, so UV decontamination still falls short of sterilization. - Plastic degradation. Chronic UV exposure yellows and embrittles some polymers, which is why manuals that mention UV at all usually cap the exposure. - Interlocks and safety. UV damages skin and eyes. Staff must treat lamp cabinets with the same discipline as any other hazard, and the lamp output declines with hours of use, so bulbs need scheduled replacement. ## Option 5, sterile consumables and alternative instruments Sometimes the best answer to the sterile pipette question is to never need one. **Sterile and filter tips.** Certified sterile pipette tips, irradiated by the manufacturer and packed in sealed racks or wrapped stacks, guarantee that the fluid path is sterile regardless of the pipette's state. Filter tips add an aerosol-resistant hydrophobic membrane, commonly polyethylene or polytetrafluoroethylene, inside the tip, which stops liquid or aerosol from traveling up into the pipette shaft. For PCR setup, RNA work, and any pathogen handling, filter tips are the single most effective contamination control in the chain, and they protect the pipette itself from internal contamination that no autoclave cycle would need to fix. **Reusable glass and serological pipettes.** Glass Pasteur pipettes and glass serological pipettes tolerate dry heat or steam sterilization in pipette cans without any of the mechanical concerns of a micropipette. Dry-heat sterilization of clean glassware at 160 to 180 °C for a defined period is a long-standing standard technique, and pre-sterilized disposable serological pipettes, individually wrapped and certified, dominate cell culture workflows for good reason. **Loaner or spare instruments.** Labs that must autoclave pipettes regularly for a strict protocol often keep a dedicated subset of fully autoclavable pipettes for that purpose, rotating them so each instrument gets service intervals on schedule. The pros of this family are consistency and reliability, because factory-certified sterility is documented and repeatable. The cons are consumable cost and waste, and the fact that sterile tips say nothing about the state of the pipette exterior you bring into a biosafety cabinet, so surface decontamination remains part of the routine. ## How to autoclave a pipette correctly, step by step If your pipette is rated for autoclaving and you have decided that steam is the right choice, procedure determines whether you get a sterile, accurate instrument or a sterile, inaccurate one. The sequence below reflects the consensus of manufacturer technical documentation across major pipette brands. Your own manual takes precedence wherever the details differ. 1. **Confirm the rating.** Check the manual or the manufacturer's specification sheet. Note the approved temperature, usually 121 °C, the approved cycle type, and which parts may be steamed. 2. **Check condition first.** A pipette with a cracked shaft, a swollen O-ring, or visible corrosion should be serviced before it enters the autoclave, because heat will finish the damage. 3. **Disassemble per the manual.** Remove the tip ejector and the lower shaft assembly if the manual directs it. Some fully autoclavable models require only that you unscrew the shaft slightly or remove the nose cone so steam reaches the interior. Note the order of washers and O-rings as you go. 4. **Loosen, do not seal.** Place parts in an autoclave pouch left unsealed or in a foil cap that is open at the bottom. Steam must penetrate. Airtight wrapping is the classic failure mode, because trapped air blocks steam contact and the interior never reaches sterilizing temperature. 5. **Run a standard cycle.** A gravity cycle at 121 °C and approximately 15 psi with a 15 to 20 minute hold is the standard for laboratory instruments, followed by a drying phase. Do not use liquid cycles or accelerated programs designed for media flasks. 6. **Dry and cool completely.** Leave the load in the autoclave or drying station until the drying phase completes, then let parts reach room temperature on a clean surface. Handling hot plastic can deform it, and reassembling a warm, damp pipette traps condensation inside. 7. **Inspect, relubricate, and reassemble.** Look for damage, replace any O-ring that shows compression set or cracking, and apply the silicone grease the manual specifies to the piston where the manufacturer directs it. Reassemble in reverse order. 8. **Verify function and recalibrate.** Before the pipette returns to service, check its calibration, described in the next section. Log the autoclave cycle against the pipette's serial number so service intervals stay honest. One habit worth building across the whole lab: keep a small laminated card or an internal wiki page mapping each pipette model in the lab to its autoclave status. New staff should never have to guess, and the occasional visiting researcher should be able to see the answer at a glance. ## What autoclaving does to accuracy and pipette calibration A pipette is a precision instrument. Its job is to deliver a stated volume with a stated accuracy and precision, and the international standard governing piston-operated volumetric apparatus, ISO 8655, defines both terms and the test conditions under which they are verified. Anything that changes the geometry of the piston, the compression of the seals, or the friction along the piston travel changes the delivered volume. Autoclaving does all three in small amounts. Heat expands and then recontracts plastic parts, sometimes with a residual shift. Steam and heat compress elastomer seals, reducing their spring force, which changes the air cushion inside an air-displacement pipette. A dried-out piston changes friction, which affects both the volume and the feel of the plunger stroke that experienced users rely on for consistent pipetting technique. The practical consequence is straightforward. After autoclaving, verify the pipette before it returns to routine work, and schedule a full calibration if verification fails or if the pipette is due anyway. **What verification and calibration look like.** The accepted method is gravimetric, meaning you dispense a set volume of distilled water, weigh it on a calibrated analytical balance, convert mass to volume using the temperature-corrected density of water, and repeat the measurement enough times to compute both mean error, which is accuracy, and standard deviation, which is precision. ISO 8655 prescribes the number of replicates and the test volumes, typically 100%, 50%, and 10% of nominal volume. Many labs run an abbreviated in-house check, for example ten dispenses at one or two volumes with acceptance limits from the manufacturer's specification table, and send the pipette for full calibration on a schedule, commonly every 6 to 12 months depending on use and lab policy. **When calibration matters most.** Pipettes used for quantitative work, such as qPCR setup, protein assays, and serological dilution series, need tighter tolerances than pipettes used for reagent transfer. An autoclaved pipette returning to quantitative duty deserves a full gravimetric check, not a spot check. **Record keeping.** A calibration log keyed to serial numbers, noting autoclave dates, service dates, and verification results, turns the whole question of whether autoclaving harmed a pipette into a data problem instead of a guess. If a pipette drifts after its third autoclave cycle, the log will show it. ## How sterilization choices interact with pipetting technique Sterilization and pipetting technique are usually taught as separate topics, but they fail together. A correctly autoclaved pipette used with poor technique recontaminates itself, and a perfectly executed technique with a contaminated pipette contaminates the experiment. The connection points worth knowing: - **The nose cone and the tip seal.** Contamination on the outside of the nose cone transfers to the outside of the tip during mounting, then to the rim of the vessel you dip into. Sterilizing the shaft and nose cone, and seating tips with a slight twist rather than a hard jam, protects both the sample and the seal quality. A worn or contaminated cone also causes micro-leaks that appear as inconsistent volumes. - **Filter tips as a barrier, not an excuse.** An aerosol-resistant filter tip stops fluid and aerosols from entering the shaft, but it does not license sloppy technique. Touching the tip to non-sterile surfaces, setting a used tip down on the bench, or reaching across an open plate defeats the barrier. - **Pre-rinsing the tip.** For accurate delivery, especially with viscous solutions, pre-rinsing the tip, meaning aspirating and dispensing the working liquid once before the measured draw, conditions the dead air volume inside the tip and improves reproducibility. Sterile tips and sterile pipettes make this step contamination-safe. - **Vertical storage.** Store pipettes upright on a rack. Laid-down pipettes collect liquid that migrates into the shaft, which is a contamination route and a corrosion route, and it undoes some of the value of sterilizing the shaft in the first place. - **Forward versus reverse pipetting.** Reverse pipetting, in which you aspirate slightly more than the set volume and dispense only part of it, suits viscous or foaming liquids. Both modes work fine with autoclaved instruments, but reverse pipetting leaves a residual volume in the tip, so discard tips accordingly to keep the sterile chain intact. The hierarchy that holds across all of these: sterile consumables at the fluid path, a decontaminated or sterilized instrument, and disciplined technique. Each layer covers the weaknesses of the others. ## Worked scenarios **Scenario 1, a shared molecular biology lab setting up PCR.** The lab has a mix of two fully autoclavable pipette models and one older model whose manual lists only the shaft as autoclavable. For PCR setup, the routine is simple. The fully autoclavable pipettes go through the chamber quarterly, after the ritual of seal inspection and gravimetric verification, and get a 70% ethanol wipe-down between uses. The older pipette's shaft assembly is autoclaved monthly and reinstalled with fresh O-rings as needed. Everyone uses sterile filter tips for master mix and template, so the fluid path is sterile every time regardless of pipette history. The UV lamp in the biosafety cabinet runs overnight as a background reduction measure, not as the primary defense. **Scenario 2, a teaching laboratory with an aging pipette stock.** Twenty pipettes, mixed brands, some manuals long gone. The supervisor cannot verify autoclave ratings for six of them, so those six are classified Tier 3 by default. The routine becomes wipe-down decontamination for all bodies, verified sterile filter tips for every student exercise, and an annual external calibration contract covering the whole stock. Students learn pipetting technique on instruments that are clean and verified, without the lab risking a steam cycle on an unrated instrument. Two years later, as unrated units fail or drift, they are replaced with fully autoclavable models, and the stock migrates toward the easy tier over time. **Scenario 3, a cell culture lab handling primary cells.** Sterility demands are high and turnaround is fast. Micropipettes stay out of the autoclave in day-to-day work, because the bottleneck is downtime. Instead, the fluid path is covered by sterile individually wrapped serological pipettes for media changes and sterile filter tips for plating, the pipette exteriors get bleach-then-ethanol wipe-downs before entering the biosafety cabinet, and each micropipette goes through a full autoclave cycle during scheduled quarterly maintenance when a calibrated spare covers the bench. This division of labor keeps sterility where it matters, at the sample, and reserves steam cycles for moments when the lab can absorb the downtime. ## Common Mistakes and Limitations These are the errors that show up repeatedly in real labs, and the honest limits of what autoclaving can do. - **Autoclaving an unrated pipette because a colleague said it was fine.** Heat damage to a non-autoclavable pipette is not always visible. The housing may look intact while the spring steel has lost temper and the seals have hardened, and the instrument delivers wrong volumes from that day on. - **Wrapping parts airtight.** Foil wrapped like a gift blocks steam penetration. The parts stay contaminated inside the wrap even though the outside of the package comes out with autoclave tape changed color. Breathable pouches and open foil caps exist for this reason. - **Skipping the drying phase.** Reassembling a damp pipette traps moisture against the piston and seals, promoting corrosion and lubricant washout. Always complete the dry cycle and cool to room temperature first. - **Treating decontamination as sterilization.** A 70% ethanol wipe is good practice and insufficient for sterility. Know which standard your protocol requires before you choose the method. - **Autoclaving with the pipette assembled and loaded.** A pipette sent through the chamber with a tip still mounted, or fully assembled when the manual requires shaft removal, gets uneven steam exposure and can trap condensation in the mechanism. - **Assuming autoclaving replaces maintenance.** Steam cycles age seals and grease. If nobody replaces O-rings or relubricates pistons, each successive cycle degrades performance further. Manufacturer service intervals exist because the wear is predictable. - **Ignoring calibration after the cycle.** An autoclaved pipette is not automatically an accurate pipette. Verification before return to service is part of the procedure, not an optional extra. - **UV as the primary barrier.** UV decontamination is a useful supplement and a poor foundation, because shadows and spores defeat it. - **Autoclaving electronic pipettes and their battery packs.** Unless the manual explicitly permits it, and it almost never does, electronics stay out of the chamber entirely. - **Storing pipettes laid flat or with tips attached.** Both habits draw contamination and liquid back toward the shaft you just sterilized. On limitations. Manufacturer documentation is the final authority on whether a specific instrument tolerates autoclaving and on the exact cycle parameters, service intervals, and approved lubricants, so when your situation is unusual, consult the manual or the manufacturer's technical support rather than general guidance. Individual calibration and repair decisions also depend on the instrument's history, its duty cycle, and the precision your application demands, which is why accredited calibration services and the manufacturer's own service programs exist. When the stakes are high or the pipette's history is unknown, get it professionally evaluated rather than guessing. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Can you autoclave a pipette? Yes, if the manufacturer rates the pipette or its shaft assembly as autoclavable. Disassemble it as the manual directs, wrap it so steam can penetrate, run a standard 121 °C gravity cycle with a drying phase, cool fully, reassemble, and verify calibration before it returns to service. ### How many times can you autoclave a pipette? Manufacturers that rate their pipettes as autoclavable typically specify a maximum number of cycles or a service interval after which seals, O-rings, and grease need replacement. Check your specific model's manual for the stated limit, and log cycles against the serial number so the limit is actually enforced. ### Can you autoclave an electronic pipette? Usually no. Electronic pipettes contain circuitry, displays, and motors that steam destroys. Most manufacturers approve only surface decontamination for their electronic models, and a few approve autoclaving of a detachable shaft, so follow the specific manual. ### Do I need to recalibrate a pipette after autoclaving? Yes, verify it at minimum. Steam cycles can shift the pipette's delivered volume through seal compression and piston friction changes, so run a gravimetric check against the manufacturer's specifications, and schedule full calibration if the check fails or the pipette is due anyway. ### Can you autoclave pipette tips? Polypropylene tips can be autoclaved in suitable racks or punctured bags, but tips containing aerosol-resistant filters are generally not autoclavable because the membranes can be damaged or wetted. The simplest reliable route for most work is buying certified pre-sterilized tips rather than autoclaving your own. ### What can I use instead of autoclaving to decontaminate a pipette? Wipe the exterior with 70% ethanol or isopropanol, or use freshly prepared 10% bleach followed by a clean water wipe, and rely on sterile filter tips to protect the fluid path. This decontaminates rather than sterilizes, so reserve it for situations where full sterility of the instrument itself is not required.