Introduction to UTW^® technology

UTW technology is a novel, patent-pending method of injection molding polymers which allows previously unobtainable precision, thinness of cross-section and level of detail while retaining the economies of the standard injection molding technique. This unique process has been used to create an entire family of polypropylene PCR sample vessels with walls that are half the thickness of conventional ”thin-wall” PCR tubes and plates.

• Reliably generates sample vessels with ultra-thin walls of 0.15 mm that dramatically speed up thermal transfer rates
• Reliably generates sample vessel tubes with previously unavailable consistency of wall thickness (+/- .0005 inch)
• Has the ability to produce parts with significantly reduced internal stress, allowing parts to possess greater dimensional stability
• Is easily adapted to generate reaction vessels for specialized applications such as custom diagnostic formats

The UTW process generates PCR vessels with half the conventional wall thickness

PCR vessels molded with UTW method (left) have significantly thinner and more consistent walls than standard thin-wall tubes.

UTW vessels dramatically improve thermal transfer to the PCR sample

Thermal profile of a 30 μl sample during block temperature change from 98°C to 61.5°C (mimicking the transition from denaturing temperature to annealing temperature in PCR) was measured with a small calibrated thermistor. The standard thin-wall tubes cause the sample to lag by more than 2.5°C and 10 seconds as compared to UTW vessels.