Millipore Corporation has successfully upgraded Laboratoire Thébault, a clinical laboratory located in Choisy-le-Roi near Paris, France, with an Elix Clinical water purification system, which it uses to feed an Hitachi® 917 analyzer. The Millipore system combines pretreatment, reverse osmosis and Millipore’s patented Elix electrodeionization module to produce high-quality, pure water on a consistent basis.

The laboratory, owned by Dr. Bertrand Thébault, performs analyses for walk-in clients as well as contract research organizations (CROs), the pharmaceutical research bodies responsible for clinical trials. "We have always needed pure water to feed and clean analyzers, reconstitute reagents and wash glassware," explains Dr. Thébault.

A previous reliance on separate reverse osmosis technology and ion exchange resin cartridges resulted in frequent quality dips. Following an external audit, Thébault began purchasing bottled water, which solved the quality issue, but created a significant additional expense due to the large volume of water required. The installation of Millipore’s Elix 70 Clinical water purification system provides the pure water required by the lab at low operating and maintenance costs. Tap water usage was decreased from four liters to two for every one liter of pure water produced.

There is no need to replace saturated ion exchange resins on a regular basis. Additionally, traceability is no longer a problem, as pure water parameters may be printed from an internal monitoring system.