Are you preparing large volumes of dehydrated media in your lab? Do you experience batch-to-batch variability? Do you have difficulty getting your strains to grow? Do you worry about the traceability of your autoclave cycles? The good news is you are not alone.
Traditionally, microbiology labs have used steam autoclaves to prepare and sterilise media for culturing microorganisms. Although autoclaves are an excellent means of sterilisation, they are not designed to maintain the fertility of carefully formulated culture media.
Disadvantages of using an autoclave to prepare media
- Requires multiple preparation steps including weighing, diluting and pre-heating of dehydrated media
- Risk of personal injury when boiling media on hotplates and handling hot bottles
- Excessive heating can result in pH drift, poor gel strength and degradation of nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals and peptides
- Extended heating periods can cause sugars in the medium to caramelise, reducing its ability to support microbial growth
- Temperatures reached in different parts of the autoclave can vary, resulting in variations in the appearance and fertility of the media
- Biological indicators and autoclave tape are required to prove sterilisation was successful.
“Media manufacturers use media preparators when making pre-poured plates – a normal steam autoclave is simply not up to the task”
The benefits of a media preparator
Media preparators ensure maximum sterility is achieved while minimising the damage to the nutrient components. They enable technicians to prepare culture media in an easy, reproducible way that improves the overall quality of the media.
- Significantly reduces the time needed to run a full cycle.
- Allows large volumes of media to be prepared at once.
- No need to weigh and dilute multiple bottles of dehydrated media.
- There are no media bottles with solidified agar to wash.
- Reduces the manual operations required, thus minimising the risk of error and contamination.
- Enables full traceability of media preparation
Mediawel Media Preparators
The Mediawel 10L and Mediawel 30L from Alliance Bio Expertise ensure the quality of the media through tight temperature control (+/- 0.5°C) and continuous homogenisation. A separate addition port allows supplements and antibiotics to be added to the vessel during the cycle. The Mediawel can be combined with a manual dispenser (Dosywel), an automated plate pourer (Distriwel) or an automated tube dispenser (Polywel) to maximise efficiency.
| Steam Autoclave | Mediawel Media Preparator |
| Requires pre-heating to dissolve agar | No pre-heating required |
| Risk of burning operator | No risk of burning operator |
| Slow heating and cooling | Rapid heating and cooling ~15 min |
| Cooling time alone can be 90 min | Full cycle takes approx. 90 min |
| No agitation of media – burned base | Continuous stirring of media |
| Internal temperature variations (>3°C) | Uniform internal temperature (+/-0.5°C) |
| Only suitable for volumes <1 L | Suitable for volumes up to 30 L |
| Requires manual dispensing of media | Works with automated media dispensers |
| Requires cleaning of media bottles | Easy cleaning – no dirty media bottles |
| Only ticket printer for traceability | Real-time data monitoring software |
| Requires a lot of space | Requires little space and is mobile |
If you would like more information on the Mediawel or any of the Alliance Bio Expertise media preparation range, contact MSC below:
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