November 20, 2008

• Got high throughput cleaning demands?
• HiPace™ Turbopumps. Delivering vacuum faster!

• Unlocking the Secrets of Automation in the Pharmaceutical Laboratory
• Understanding the Potential of Near-Infrared Chemical Imaging
• New Ion Chromatography Solutions for Routine Water Analysis
• Reintroducing Countercurrent Chromatography to the Chemist
• Automation of Solid-Phase Extraction for Urinary Opiate Analysis
• Mobile Phase Preparation for UHPLC: Impact of Filtration
  Through 0.2-µm Membranes on System Performance
• Choosing the Correct Needle for Neuroscience Injections

• Bulbtronics Inc. Received ISO 9001:2000 Certification
• Thermo Fisher Scientific Entered Collaborative
  Agreement With NextDocs Corp.
• Official Opening of LAUDA-Brinkmann, LP

Miele’s PG 8527 glassware washer represents the most state-of-the-art washing system on the market today.  It can clean hundreds of pieces of glassware per day, while utilizing a minimal amount of water, detergent and electricity. The
PG 8527’s gentle start pumps provide high throughput of water at a low spray pressure so that even very small items, such as 10ml. volumetric flasks, can be safely cleaned. The flexible basket system can accommodate both small and large items, and clean items on 1 to 3 levels or provide split-level cleaning so that both tall and shorter items can be cleaned in a single wash load.

More Info

Contact Information
Miele
Tel.: 800-640-2613
E-mail: miele@miele.com
www.miele.com

by Abe Kassis, Tarun Patel, Kevin Bynum, and Roy Paul

A brief discussion about dissolution is important to understand the relevance of automation to this field. Dissolution testing is a critical test for measuring the performance of a drug product. In the last few years, the importance of the dissolution test has increased substantially. Dissolution testing plays several key roles in the pharmaceutical industry. Primarily, the test is a quality control tool that measures change on stability of the drug product. The relevant changes in the drug product are caused by temperature, humidity, photosensitivity, etc. The test is also important for formulation development. During development of the drug products, the formulators use the dissolution test to discriminate between variants of the drug product. Furthermore, once in vivo data have been established for the drug product, a correlation between in vivo/in vitro is attempted…

Click here to continue reading

Bulbtronics Inc., a global distributor of bulbs, batteries, and related lighting products, has received ISO 9001:2000 certification by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This certification signifies commitment to quality processes and procedures in order to enhance customer satisfaction.

HiPace™ turbopumps deliver fast vacuum to your process. Featuring a new rotor design, HiPace™ provides reduced run-up time, higher gas throughput and exceptional compression for light gases. A variety of drive versions, including Profibus and DeviceNet, are available without an increase in package size. The compact HiPace™ has integrated drive electronics which reduces bulky and costly cabling. Innovative materials have doubled drive service life, while proven Pfeiffer Vacuum bearing design ensures reliability, even in harsh applications. Available in pumping speeds from 10 to 700 l/s, HiPace™ can be installed in any orientation.

Contact Information
Pfeiffer Vacuum, Inc
Tel.: 603-578-6500
Toll Free: 800-248-8254
E-mail: hipace@pfeiffer-vacuum.com
www.pfeiffer-vacuum.com

by E. Neil Lewis and Janie Dubois

Improvements in the price–performance ratio of digital imaging cameras coupled with better data processing tools have promoted the use of "machine vision." Imaging systems operating in the visible (400–700 nm) and more recently the infrared (3–5 or 8–12 µm) regions are now used commercially for a range of product inspection, quality control, quality assurance, and manufacturing automation applications. The intermediate, near-infrared (NIR) spectral region (1000–2500 nm) has not yet been commercially exploited to the same extent, despite the widely recognized value of NIR spectroscopy as an analytical tool. This situation is changing with the advent of powerful NIR-chemical imaging (NIR-CI) systems that offer unique advantages for many applications…

Click here to continue reading

Thermo Fisher Scientific has entered into a collaborative agreement with NextDocs Corp. to bundle and sell the NextDocs enterprise document quality and compliance management solution suite. The offering is a natural extension of Thermo Fisher Scientific's portfolio of LIMS and CDS products, allowing the company to offer a comprehensive, fully integrated informatics and content management solution to the industry. The suite offers users an intuitive "plug-and-play" solution for managing data that addresses the growing need for an easy-to-use, Web-based solution that is designed to enable organizations to comply with FDA 21 CFR Part 11, GMP, GLP, GCP, and other regulations and industry standards.

Anion and cation determination in all types of water is one of the domains of ion chromatography (IC). Laboratories that routinely analyze water require rugged, reliable, and easy-to-use instruments and solutions that allow the operator to achieve fast results with minimum effort and low cost. These requirements have driven innovations in IC over the last three decades. Users have enjoyed increasingly easy-to-use instruments and software solutions that reduce the time for data processing and generating reports. This article describes the latest technologies to simplify analyses for routine water laboratories…

Click here to continue reading

LAUDA officially announced the opening of its wholly owned subsidiary, LAUDA-Brinkmann, LP, located in Delran, NJ. LAUDA-Brinkmann, LP will focus its primary efforts on providing industry-leading heating and cooling solutions and measuring instruments to the research, industrial, and OEM communities throughout the United States and Canada.

Ever since chemists began using separating funnels to isolate compounds by partitioning, they have understood the potential benefits of liquid/liquid chromatography, known today as countercurrent chromatography (CCC). Yet despite this knowledge, solid/liquid chromatography techniques, such as HPLC or flash, have become the workhorses of purification. Until recently, CCC was primarily a technique for natural products or academic research and was hardly used in mainstream purification. Unfortunately, early CCC instrumentation was poorly engineered and suffered from slow speed of separation, a combination that led to negligible adoption as a complementary and orthogonal chromatography technique…

Click here to continue reading

The identification and confirmation of opiates extracted from biological matrices such as blood, plasma/serum, and urine may often lead to more questions than answers, as many exponents of forensic toxicology can attest to. The presence of morphine in samples of human urine may be an indicator of pain therapy medication, heroin abuse, or ingestion of foods containing poppy seeds such as bagels. Several studies have proposed the use of 6-acetylmorphine (also known as 6-MAM) as the primary biomarker for heroin abuse. Heroin (diacetylmorphine) is metabolized to 6-acetylmorphine within minutes of entering the human system; this is then conjugated or is further metabolized to morphine. Metabolism of heroin is shown in…

Click here to continue reading

UHPLC/UPLC® (Waters Corp., Milford, MA) is a revolutionary chromatography technique that is gaining wide acceptance among researchers due to improved resolution, shorter chromatographic runs, and the capability for fast method development. The presence of sub-2-µm particles in UHPLC (ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography) columns provides these benefits but also poses challenges in sample and mobile phase preparation. Particulate impurities in the sample or mobile phase can cause backpressure buildup in the UHPLC system, causing system failure. In fact, most UHPLC instrument vendors recommend filtration of mobile phase using 0.2-µm filters, but there is a lack of data showing the benefits of filtration. In this article, the authors show the benefits of filtering mobile phases through 0.2-µm membrane filters and the effects on UHPLC system performance. Mobile phases prepared with three commonly used solvents (water, acetonitrile, and methanol) were filtered through four types of membrane filters, and the effect of the various filters on system backpressure was compared. The results clearly indicate that filtration of mobile phase components using the optimal membrane filter will help protect UHPLC systems from particulate impurities that may clog and shut down the system…

Click here to continue reading

Microvolume syringes and their associated needles can be found in just about any laboratory, especially neuroscience laboratories, where microinjections are commonplace. However, there are many caveats associated with using stainless steel needles that can cause problems in a delicate neuroscience application. When specifying the proper needle, a user must be conscious of the outer diameter, length, flexibility, tip geometry, clogging, and risk of injection traveling through the injection site. These considerations make the shortcomings of stainless steel needles easily identifiable to an experienced neuroscience researcher. A common alternative to stainless steel needles are glass capillary needles, but not without stipulation. Common glass capillary connections use glue or wax, neither of which creates a robust seal and can be difficult to change. Other connection options use plastic tubing for flexibility, which adds heavy costs due to dead volume and accuracy issues…

Click here to continue reading