How Point-of-Use Ultra Pure Water Works

Problem: Slow production of laboratory-grade ultra pure water necessitates storage in large carboys. Many lab technicians will fill carboys up to 30 liters to locally store and dispense ultra pure water. High purity water stored in such large volumes will quickly degrade in quality. Water storage has become necessary due to the low-dispense flow rates of most lab water-purification systems.

Point-of-use laboratory water-purification systems typically have flow rates of about 1 L per minute. Filling a carboy can take up to 30 minutes and the process is often left unattended. Manual filling operations lead to spills and potential flooding of the laboratory. Carboy filling is a waste of valuable laboratory time and resources.

Ultra high purity water stored in large containers will quickly degrade in quality due to exposure to the atmosphere. The carboys themselves will contribute impurities to the water as they age, degrade and become dirty. Also of concern is biological contamination due to the stagnant, ambient storage conditions of these containers.

Faster flow rates and PLC controls are needed to allow technicians to dispense deionized water on demand. Volumetric dispensing is needed to allow for repeated filling of containers in a variety of sizes.

Solution: The Gemini-Mini Basin (Gemini-MB) is a wall-mounted, high-flow, point-of-use polisher that can dispense ultra pure water at a rate of 3.7 lpm. The flow rate is more than three times faster than that of traditional polishing systems. The system is a true water polishing unit that can produce large volumes of ultra pure lab water between filter replacements when fed with deionized or reverse osmosis treated feed water. With PLC control, the Gemini-MB can be intuitively programmed to automatically fill and stop at precise volumes to eliminate the need for continual supervision.

Flexible dispensing features include:

• Standard ability to program four independent batch volumes. The user can program one batch to fill 100 ml beakers and another to fill 30 L carboys.
• Remote dispensing gun with full recirculation and submicron filter.
• Direct feed of equipment downstream.

Filtration technology:

• Multi-pass UV system provides sterilization of the flow path as well as the dispensing port.
• TOC UV destruction unit reduces the total organic carbon content of the product water.
• Submicron filtration removes bacteria and viruses.
• Ultra filtration for RNase, DNase free water.
• Ion-exchange technology features high purity, low TOC demineralization resins.

The Gemini-MB provides an easy and cost-effective solution for quick filling of containers or small vessels with ultra pure water and eliminates spills and flooding with automated control. The extremely high water-production rate can eliminate the need to store water at all.