We develop and manufacture a range of top-quality surfactants and other chemicals used in droplet-based microfluidic workflows. Our chemists ensure they’re optimized for use with our platforms to deliver the results that you need for your research.

Pico-Surf® is a patented range of surfactants used in a variety of microdroplet and picodroplet applications. They act to stabilize picodroplets and their cellular or molecular contents. Picodroplets are highly stable over a wide range of temperatures and biological conditions, ensuring reliability and reproducibility.

Our surfactants are commonly used across a broad range of research programs including antibody discovery, cell line development, cell engineering, and more.

• Facilitates generation of aqueous solution-in-oil picodroplets for a variety of biological assays.
• Allows consistent formation and stabilization of picodroplets from 8pL to 700pL (diameter).
• Animal Origin Free.
• Manufactured to high quality standards through stringent quality assurance procedures.
• Ready to use.

Our Pico-Surf® reagents contain a surfactant dissolved in a fluorinated carbon oil. The oil that we’ve historically used is a molecule called Novec 7500™. 3M previously manufactured Novec 7500™, but ended this manufacture in January 2025. As a result, our team of experts have sourced an alternative supplier of a suitable oil.

Our new range of Pico-Surf® surfactants in fluorinated oil are identical from a molecular perspective. After extensive testing of various physical and biocompatibility parameters we are satisfied that the performance of the oil is equivalent to Novec™ 7500. Take a look at the table below for more information about the physical parameters of the two different oils demonstrating their equivalence. 

We intend to continue supplying products containing Novec™ 7500 for the foreseeable future. However, given the supply challenges we strongly recommend switching to the new range of PicoSurf® products (which just also happens to be more cost-effective).

If you have any questions about the PicoSurf® in fluorinated oil range, please contact our team and we’ll be happy to help!