Analytical Chemist

Thursday, 10 February 2011

Fundamentals of Freeze Drying

SP Scientific, a world leader in freeze drying technology, has announced a new 4-part series of LyoLearn webinars during February 2011 designed to help participants better understand the basic theory and fundamentals of freeze drying.

Chaired by Dr Jeff Schwegmann, director of AB Biotechnologies - the scope of the first webinar, to be held on February 4th, will be to provide an introduction to freeze drying theory and the components of freeze drying, temperature and vacuum monitoring systems.

The second webinar, to be held on February 11th, will focus on the physical properties of different types of materials (eutectic melting, glass transition, collapse temperatures, etc.) and discuss applications of thermal characterisation techniques for solutions and solids.

To be held on February 18th, the third webinar will look at the latest freezing, annealing, primary and secondary drying techniques and the theory behind them. Reflecting the importance of freeze drying in the production environment the fourth webinar, to be held on February 25th, will discuss strategies for optimizing freeze drying scale-up, cycle transfer and maximising your throughput capability.
http://www.spscientific.com/

Wednesday, 9 February 2011

Introducing the KNAUER Explorer Club for children in Berlin

It smells the same, it tastes the same, it looks the same!...but it's really not the same!?
In the newly opened KNAUER Explorer Club (KEC for short) children can discover through HPLC how things can smell the same, taste the same and look the same, but still contain different substances... see more at:

http://www.knauer.net/cgi-bin/e_showtopic.pl?file=../e/topic/e_knauer_explorer_club.prm&acro=0&k=21021-1

Sample preparation for residue analysis of pesticides

Sample preparation for residue analysis of pesticides

Sample cleanup with gel permeation chromatography (GPC) is a commonly used method in environmental and food analysis. It is a powerful way to increase the limit of detection to levels required for analysis of pesticide residues and other trace impurities. Well-established GPC sample cleaning methods such EN 12393, EN 1528, and US EPA SW-846 Method 3640A are quite time-consuming and solvent-intensive procedures. In this application note, the often used Bio-Beads SX-3 stationary phase is compared with the new EuroClean GPC material regarding performance and suitability for environmental and food laboratories. KNAUER's EuroClean GPC is shown to provide a significantly improved performance over Bio-Beads, allowing for a 30% increase in speed and solvent savings in the range of 30% ... see more at:
http://www.knauer.net/dwnld_fls/a_e_vfd16_pesticide_residues_sample_cleanup.pdf?k=21021-1

Tuesday, 8 February 2011

SFT - HPR Series - High Pressure Chemical Reactors

Supercritical Fluid Technologies introduces a new series of stirred reactors for high pressure chemistry. The HPR Series Reactors have been designed for researchers who are interested in performing pressurized chemical reactions in their laboratories. Whether it is high pressure chemical synthesis or process development, the HPR Series is an excellent unit for those applications.

The reactors range in size from 50 ml to 4 liters and may be operated up to 10,000 psi and 350°C. The reactors have a magnetically coupled impeller for optimal mixing. All high pressure components are ASME rated and protected by a rupture disc for safe operation. These laboratory bench top models are ideal for applications where repetitive use makes convenience a necessity, such as catalytic studies, polymerization, hydrogenation, oxidation, isomerization, and dehydrogenation. All sizes are supplied as ready-to-use instruments requiring only utility connections prior to operation. The reactors are compact instruments that fit easily into a fume hood. Their modular design makes it simple and cost-effective to alter the unit’s basic configuration to adapt to new or evolving application needs.

All functions for the HPR Series Reactor are controlled by choices of two integrated processors (RxTrol Jr. or RxTrol Sr.) with a full color touch screen. RxTrol Jr. consists of (2) temperature sensors (wall/interior mounting), and fuzzy logic PID temperature controls and mixing controls in a table top assembly. RxTrol Sr. offers many more advanced features utilizing a microcontroller to perform all PID, ramp/soak, process trending, and interlock functions.

Additional options include vessel windows (<150 degrees Celsius operation only), additional ports, cooling coils, sample loops, stand alone pressure transducers, supercritical fluids pumps and reagent addition modules.

For more information, please call us at 302-738-3420 or visit us on-line at www.supercriticalfluids.com.

Monday, 7 February 2011

Alternative Method for Chromatography Invented to Measure Medical Doses

Iranian researchers at the University of Kashan used carbon paste electrodes modified by gold nanoparticles to measure the atenolol medicine doses. This method can be an alternative for the complicated and expensive chromatography methods.

Atenolol is an effective drug for the treatment of blood pressure, angina pectoris and cardiac attacks and arrest. Excessive use of atenolol causes toxicity within the patient's body. Therefore, the determination of the dose of atenolol is of great importance in medical and clinical researches.

"Among the advantages of the electrode products in this research, mention can be made of its relatively low price in comparison with other electrodes, non-toxicity, ease of production, extensive potential range of application, low background flow, quick response, resistance against mechanical damage, perfect modifiability and sustainable surface," Mohsen Behpour, member of the Scientific Board of University of Kashan, told the Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council.

"Those electrodes are used to determine atenolol in anti blood pressure tablets and biological liquids (urinate sample and blood serum)."

"In order to produce modified carbon paste electrodes, we first mixed some graphite powder with the colloidal solution of gold nanoparticles, and then dried it. Next, we added some paraffin oil to the mixture and loaded the obtained paste into polyethylene syringe. At the end, we made an electric connection to the paste by putting a copper wire inside the syringe," Dr Behpour said, elaborating on the procedure of the research.

Non-modified electrodes that were produced through this method have a much lower sensitivity.

"The results of this research can provide the laboratories with a simple and cost-effective method to be replaced with complicated and expensive chromatography methods," Behpour concluded.

Found at: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8911170548