I have been conducting an experiment on HeLa cells; I do not need phosphate contamination or at least minimize phosphate interaction with my culture as much as I can. Thanks
You can use MOPS as a buffering agent. It has an almost ideal pKa at room temperature (7.2 @25°C, 7.28 @20°C; in some manuals: 7.14 and 7.2, respectively) which is approximately what cells have in the cytosol (pH~7.2). HEPES seems to be a slightly better choice for 37°C (pKa 7.31 vs 7.02 for MOPS).