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Milli-Q is a trademark created by Millipore Corporation to describe 'ultrapure' water of "Type 1", as defined by various authories (e.g. ISO 3696), as well as their devices for producing such water[1]. The purification processes involve successive steps of filtration and deionisation, to achieve a purity expediently characterised in terms of resistivity (typically 18.2 MΩ·cm). When used in this fashion, the term has a fairly well-defined meaning.
The term is also commonly (mis)used as a genericised trademark to refer to other purified waters (and purification equipment), whether from other systems manufactured by Millipore (such as Elix), or from systems manufactured by other companies. When used in this fashion the term's meaning is less precise.
Milli-Q water uses resin filters and deionization to purify the water. The system monitors the ion concentration by measuring the electrical resistivity of the water. Higher resistivity means fewer charge-carrying ions. Most Milli-Q systems dispense the water through a 0.22 μm membrane filter.
It is capable of producing water pure enough to get reproducibility and accuracies within parts per million when using ion mass spectrometers in analytical geochemistry.[2] Other users of this system include microbiology[3] and atmospheric science.[4]
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