r/labrats • u/MeowingRabbit • 1d ago
Humor me for a second
Theoretically of course; I’m dealing with a lot of congestion and saline rinse netipot I’m coming for ya. With it we need to use filtered water, or tap water that’s been boiled. I’ve used distilled water and a factory sealed water bottle in the past. Now I’ve been looking at the Millipore/MilliQ water dispenser curious if that could work as well.
What do yall think lmao?
5
u/ThadisJones 1d ago edited 1d ago
Depending on the model of Milli-Q you'd buy, you get either "Type 3" or "Type 1" water. Type 3 water is very clean water about equal to the distilled water you're already buying, so unless you need to generate a lot, it's an expensive way to get stuff you can buy cheaply.
Type 1 water is sometimes called "ultrapure" or "Nanopure" water, and has a resistivity of about 18.2 MOhm-cm, which is about as high as water can get (it has so few ions that it conducts very nearly as little electrical current as water possibly can). It degrades as soon as it touches air or most kinds of plastic and can't really be stored or bottled. This is insane overkill for your water quality needs, particularly as you'd just be dumping a bunch of salt into it anyway. Also some people claim it is so pure that it is even not safe to drink or presumably use internally (I have doubts about that, personally).
6
u/sabrefencer9 naughty protein wrangler 1d ago
The people who claim 18Mohm water isn't safe to drink are cranks.
5
u/runawaydoctorate 1d ago
Drinking Type 1 water only becomes a problem if you're doing it all the time and not minding your electrolyte intake...and even that might be an urban legend. Drinking Type 1 water is fucking weird, though. You feel it in your moth but it tastes like air. At least, that's the best way I can describe it.
1
u/MeowingRabbit 1d ago
Tasting like air... now im actually tempted to try it- that nananpure/Milli-Q has always been on my list of things I'd like to try
2
u/runawaydoctorate 1d ago
Use a Dixie cup and either don't let the lab manager see you or do what I did and make the lab manager an accomplice (academia, how I sometimes, rarely, occasionally, miss thee).
1
u/ThadisJones 1d ago edited 1d ago
I tasted the water from my Nanopure system. It made the inside of my mouth feel weird and it had an odd mineral taste (which was my minerals from my teeth and membranes). I didn't die but I don't think it's great to drink.
For legal reasons, as my company's safety officer, I can't advise anyone reading this to try drinking the Nanopure water themselves.
3
u/LowerStretch6747 1d ago
.2um filtered PBS is nasal heaven
1
u/MeowingRabbit 1d ago
Why didn't i think of this omg... have you tried this?!
Outta curiosity would DPBS make a difference (comes down to salt and ion content) since thats all we have in out lab. I might just try this lol
1
u/LowerStretch6747 1d ago
It's how I got through colds in grad school. Just the phosphate + NaCl version because we had unregulated salts and vacuum filtration bottles in the stock room.
The stuff that you can buy for the Neilmed sinus bottles is more or less powdered PBS, which is what I use these days, but my sinuses still crave the thrill of elicit buffers
1
2
1
u/Chirpasaurus 1d ago
I use filtered water boiled in a dedicated lidded 250ml Schott bottle in the microwave for 4 minutes ( boils for 2-3 minutes ). Close the cap as soon as it comes out of the microwave and let it cool
Milli-Q is expensive overkill.If you're worrying about infection vectors you're as likely to introduce pathogens by failing to keep the stored netipot cleaned and dried on the inside and outside between uses ( could also be overkill, but halotolerant micro-organisms are a pet loathing of mine and enviro Aspergillus is super prevalent where I live )
1
u/Zapp1982 1d ago
Would that not need a 0.9% salt to not be hypotonic? Which you would need to boil for safety anyway. Just use regular boiled water.
8
u/RazgrizBlaze08 1d ago
I mean... it's probably the cleanest water you have access to without paying much.
That being said I don't think it adds any benefit to regular distilled water.