You are on the bench and need to perform a specific type of measurement with your specific Zetasizer model… But there are many options and you are not sure which bucket is most suitable. You want to have confidence in your choice and in the possibilities of both your bucket and the instrument.
Extra care should be taken to avoid touching the windows after the cleaning is complete. The sample should be removed immediately after measurement to prevent damage to the bucket by solvent evaporation. The cuvette used to measure a sample is part of the spectrophotometer’s optical system. Therefore, the position, geometry and condition of the bucket can affect the accuracy and precision of absorption measurements and should be carefully monitored.
Buckets with a length over long paths with optical path lengths of 20 mm, 30 mm, 40 mm, 50 mm and 100 mm are available. The absorption increases proportionally with the length of the optical path of the buckets. Fluorescence buckets are buckets with 4 light walls, while absorption buckets are usually 2 clear-walled ones. Cuvettes f and g are examples of non-standard size cuvettes, which are also called short-path length cuvettes. The length of the pad and the external size are smaller than standard buckets. This consideration is especially important for buckets that are designed to measure small volumes and therefore have very small measuring windows.
When working on IR spectra, especially for wavelengths greater than 2000 nm, we recommend 1 cm cuvette IR quartz glass buckets because they provide high transmission for these wavelengths.
The material in the bucket can cause its own absorption, depending on the wavelength. Quartz semimers are fully translucent over the entire measuring range (UV/Fish). Disposable plastic buckets are often only translucent in the visible range of the spectrum. Therefore, the selection of the bucket depends mainly on the application. The decision on which type of bucket to choose depends on the instrument used, the nature of the application and the properties of the sample. In general, it is important that the cuvettes are as transparent as possible so that the wavelengths are measured so as not to limit the available linear range of the photometer.