How to easily interface peristaltic and rigid microfluidic tubing

Tutorials
21 May, 2019
Posted by: Vincent Rocher

During your microfluidic experiments, and more particularly when working with peristaltic pump, you may face an issue when trying to connect a peristaltic/soft-walled tubing (for example in silicone) and a rigid tubing (in PTFE, PEEK...).

To ease the interfacing between these two types of tubes, we are using two different types of adapters depending on the inner diameter of the peristaltic tubing:

Peristaltic Tubing Adapter for 1/16" OD PTFE Tubing. Compatible with soft-walled tubing from 1.20 mm to 3.80 mm (inner diameter), it ensures a leak-free connection with the minimal internal volume possible. The standard rigid tubing connection is for 1/16" OD tubing, but you can use any 1/4"-28 fitting for other tubing sizes.
MicroBarb Peristaltic Tubing to 1/4"-28 Adapter. Compatible with soft-walled tubing from 0.25 mm to 1.02 mm (inner diameter), it is a good way to connect small tubing where barbed and standard adapters do not work. It is particularly efficient on ISMATEC peristaltic tubing. The output connection port is a female 1/4"-28.

Interfacing soft-walled and rigid tubing

1.20 mm to 3.80 mm peristaltic tubing ID

To interface your peristaltic/soft-walled tubing with PTFE or any other rigid tubing, just select the "small" or "large" adapter based on the inner diameter (ID) size of the soft-walled tubing (more informations on the product page).

Just connect the soft-walled tubing to the main conical connector (see below, middle). In the meantime, connect the rigid tubing to the fitting and ferrule (left of the image below).

Peristaltic to rigid tubing adapter, exploded view

Exploded view of the adapter

Once done, just screw each part: that's it!

Soft-walled to rigid tubing adapter

Final adapter assembly

Are you working with other rigid tubing sizes? You can replace the 1/4"-28 to 1/16" OD fitting and ferrule for rigid tubing by any other 1/4"-28 connector. Check our Fittings & Connectors collection to find the suitable adapters for your tubing!

0.25 mm to 1.02 mm peristaltic tubing ID

These adapters from Diba are particularly useful when interfacing ISMATEC peristaltic tubing with PTFE tubing to extend your fluidic line. Just put the barbed component in your peristaltic tubing to create a flat-bottom 1/4"-28 UNF female port, where you can screw any 1/4"-28 fitting. More informations on the product page.

MicroBarb Peristaltic Tubing to 1/4"-28 Adapters (pack of 25)