Mini-Beadbeater-Plus™

The new Mini-BeadBeater-Plus™ is a high-energy bead-mill designed to violently agitate up to a half gram sample of biological material sealed inside a 2 ml microcentrifuge vial containing tiny glass, zirconia or steel lysing beads. The grinding action of the beads (beadbeating) rapidly disrupts microorganisms and plant and animal tissue in 5-90 seconds.  Being an upgrade of the venerable MiniBeadbeater-1, new features include a programmable timer, a more powerful brushless motor and 115/230 VAC compatibility.

Because cell disruption occurs inside sealed microvials, cross-contamination during homogenization is completely eliminated – an important feature for nucleic acid isolation.  And time is saved because no clean-up is needed between samples.  Sterile technique is easily accommodated for recovery of intracellular virus and bacteria from plant and animal cells and the non-foaming, non-aerosol method is ideal for recovery of enzymes, membranes and intracellular organelles.

The Mini-BeadBeater-Plus is also used for dry- or cryo-grinding.  Heavier zirconia or steel beads and special breakage-resistant microvials are used.  Hard samples such as hair, bone, teeth, seeds, and minerals are powdered in 5 – 30 seconds.  All protocols developed with the Mini-BeadBeater-Plus are transferable to larger, higher-capacity MiniBeadBeater models.