Thanks to specific equipment in place in the FSV Laundry Services, the staff produces bi-distilled water from the demineralized water network, available in the AI and SV buildings. This water is bottled in volumes of 2L, 1L and 500mL and autoclaved before being provided to users.
- Users can collect up to 4 L of water without prior order, in the Facilities SV 1522 and AI 0231, during business hours;
- Volumes of 5 Liters and more, a prior order by email is required. The delivery time is approximately one week. Users will be notified by returning email as soon as their order is ready to be picked up in the premises.
NB: The Facility does not prepare volumes of sterile bidistilled water inferior to 500ml.
Different types of water
Different kinds of water, other than the above bidistilled water, are available in the laboratories of the SV School. All these waters have different properties and each of them is more or less suitable for the various experiments.
The table below provides an overview of the characteristics of these different types of water in order to best choose the one that is most suitable for scientific activities:
| Type of water | Preparation | Properties | Availability | Applications |
| Tap water | Ordinary faucets | Contains minerals, bacteria, pyrogens, RNases and DNases. | Running water network | |
| Demineralized | Ion exchange or reverse osmosis | Contains bacteria, pyrogens, minerals in low concentration, RNases and DNases. | Available in laboratories (tap adjacent to regular faucets) | Suitable for the preparation of culture media if filtered at 0.22μm before use. |
| Bi-distilled | Demineralized water boiled twice and exposed to UV light | Contains pyrogens, a low concentration of minerals, protein fragments from bacterial membranes and RNases. | Available at the Glassware Washing Facility | Its content of protein fragments can make it unsuitable for protein purification. It is recommended for electron microscopy. |
| Nanopure or Millipore | Demineralized water, passed twice over ion exchange columns, treated with UV light and filtered at 0.22μm | Contains very few minerals, pyrogens, RNases and DNases. | Available in the AI building laboratories ( excluding the extension) and through Millipore stations. | Suitable for HPLC due to its low mineral content. Recommended for electrophysiology. |