Scientists have called on laboratory attendants to use quality water in their analysis and other investigations.
They said the use of impure water leads to wrong results because there are various contaminants in unpurified water.
The experts, who spoke at a workshop, tagged the Laboratory Water Academy (LWA), organised by the National Institute of Science Laboratory Technology (NISLT), Katchey Company Limited and Merck Millipore in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, stressed the importance of water as the most used re-agent in the laboratory.
NISLT’s Director-General, Dr Ighodalo Ijagbone, said water is an essential chemical used in the laboratory as it constitutes about 85 per cent of chemical constituents.
“So, the quality of water matters to what scientists do in the laboratory if they are to get the right result. For example, if bad water is used for investigation that may be of clinical value, such as diagnosing the cause of a disease, there is no way one can get good result for the doctors to treat the patient effectively,” he said.
He continued: “This is why the experts from Merck are trying to build our capacity so that we can produce quality water that is fitting for the laboratory.
“The water used in the laboratory is quite different from portable drinking water because it was purified through a system, which is higher than that of drinking water.”
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Katchey Company Limited, Mrs Kate Isa, said some laboratories do cut corners by using impure or poor quality water for analysis without thinking of the consequences.
“When an analyst uses air condition water or bottled water for analysis because it is cheaper, he or she would not get the right result. The result may be false, positive or negative, which means that bad products may be released into the market. And this may hurt the people. If the said products are traced back to the company that produced them, it can be shut. In the long run, it is very costly as it may affect the company’s reputation and also damage its equipment. This is because the company used water, which has contaminants. The consumables will also not last,” she said.
She said Merck Millipore is also interested in strengthening the capacity of regulatory companies because it would ensure that special products are made so that people are well served.
Mrs Isa charged the Federal Government to put in place economic policies that will encourage investors, especially in laboratory sciences.
Director of Marketing, Merck Millipore, Dr. Maurice Memme, said the training was significant because water is crucial to everything scientists do in the labs.
Memme, who spoke on water purification solution for labs, said there could not be accurate results from research or labs’work or application without clean water.
Memme, who is in-charge of Water Purification in East Europe/Middle East/Africa, said if people use unpurified water, which of course have twice the quantities of metal in it to grow cells or to do in-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) people will never get result.
“The metals will inhibit all the reactions that are backing the cells’ growth and division. This will give scientists wrong result,” he said.
He spoke of water being categorised according to their level of purity, adding: “Type-one water is the most pure water, which people can have and use for all serious applications in the laboratory. Also, there is type-two water, which is used in the vast majority of analytical researches. Type three is less clean and it is for general laboratory use, eg, washing machine.”
Distillation alone, he said, cannot produce pure water.
This, he said, is because the quantity of distilled water, if measured, is five times lower than water gotten through the purification system.
“People cannot rely on one technology if they want to produce pure water,” he said.
He said Nigeria is ripe to have laboratory water at every point in time, adding that there are established water purification system plants already.
“We have eight water purification systems/units working at the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC),” he said.
Memme said there was the need for effective regulation of labs water, adding that it would ensure that only quality water is used for experiments in the labs.
