A picolitre is a very small unit of liquid volume measurement, equivalent to one trillionth of a liter. It is commonly used in scientific research and technology, and sometimes in reference to printing presses and copiers. One picolitre is about one trillionth of a liter and is equivalent to 1×10-12 litres. It is useful for near-microscopic additions of chemicals and is sometimes used to measure the volume of a single drop of ink used in printing.
A picolitre is a unit of liquid volume measurement and is a specific subdivision of the liquid volume measurement known as a liter. In general, it is a very small measure and is considered to be one trillionth of a liter of liquid. This type of measurement is used in various scientific and research fields, although it is not commonly used by most people when referring to observable quantities of liquid. One picolitre can sometimes be referred to when referring to printing presses and copiers, often in reference to the size of a single drop of ink from machines, as those that produce smaller ink droplets can create higher resolution images.
As a measure of liquid volume, the picolitre is exceptionally small and generally not something most people would encounter. By comparison, an average raindrop is several hundred thousand picolitres in volume, assuming an average raindrop size of about 4 millimeters in diameter. This scale can be useful for near-microscopic additions of chemicals, but it’s not a practical measure for most people. As such, a picolitre is typically a unit of measurement found in scientific research and technology.
Relative to other measurements, one picolitre has a volume of about one trillionth of a litre. The scientific notation for this dimension would be that one picolitre equals 1×10-12 litres. The typical abbreviation for this measurement is “pL”, although “pl” is also sometimes used. In relation to metric measurements, where a liter is generally considered to be a cubic decimetre, and a kiloliter equals a cubic metre, it is equivalent to 1,000 cubic micrometres. A micrometer is one-millionth of a meter, and a single cubic micrometer is equal to one femtoliter, which is the equivalent of one quadrillionth of a liter.
One of the few instances where a person outside of scientific fields may come across a picoliter as a unit of measurement involves high-quality printers and copiers. For any printer using direct ink applications, measuring the volume of a single drop of ink used in printing is equivalent to the smallest possible dot or pixel of color on the printed page. This means that printers that use smaller ink droplets can create smaller color dots and therefore have higher resolutions for printed images. Therefore, manufacturers often advertise ink drop volume for comparison, and some printers produce drops of only a few picolitres in volume.
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