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The toughest degasser

Biotech Fluidics has recently launched a new model of online degassers, designed for full compatibility with the toughest solvents. We named it DEGASi® HFIP since it can withstand the highly aggressive solvent hexafluoro isopropanol (HFIP) that is used in liquid chromatography separations of certain polymers and peptides that are difficult to dissolve otherwise. The DEGASi® HFIP online degasser is compatible with a range of volatile and aggressive solvents, including hexafluoro isopropanol and silanes, but can certainly also manage all other solvents used for gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and size exclusion chromatography (SEC).

Available with two different degassing chambers for analytical and semi-preparative applications, the DEGASi® HFIP can handle flow rates up to 3 and 6 mL/min, respectively. This online degasser also comes with the new integration feature, meaning that it provides an output signal corresponding to the internal vacuum level (5 mV/mmHg), thus enabling continuous direct monitoring by instrument assemblies and software.

For more information about the new DEGASi® HFIP model of online degassers, or to discuss the selection of degasser for your application, please contact Biotech Fluidics.

Equipment for preparative purification of tagged and untagged proteins, including the ÄKTA series of liquid chromatography systems from Cytiva Life Sciences, are frequently used in settings ranging from scientific research laboratories to production plants. With these systems, it is possible to perform a variety of chromatographic separation modes including affinity, size exclusion, gel filtration, hydrophobic interaction, reversed phase, and ion exchange. However, in all modes and setups, the formation of bubbles may hamper the reproducibility of purification results and thus limit the overall productivity.

Bubbles form because of high levels of dissolved gases in the employed buffers and solvents. The multiple pressure drops occurring within the liquid flow path through a chromatography system (injector valves, separation column, detector cell, etc.), may initiate bubble formation, especially if any segment also has a higher temperature compared to the eluent bottle. Traditional ways of removing dissolved gases have been to treat the buffers, eluents and mobile phases in ultrasonic baths, but this is both labour intensive and rather inefficient, and risk changing the solution temperature, or may even accelerate degradation of sensitive components. The most efficient and user-friendly way to remove bubbles and dissolved gases in liquid chromatography is by using online vacuum degassers.

The DEGASi® range of online vacuum degassers from Biotech Fluidics can be fitted to any brand of liquid chromatography instruments to solve all your troubles with bubbles. The DEGASi® PREP stand-alone degasser is designed for flow rates up to about 20 ml/min per channel and thus suitable for most of the laboratory protein purification chromatography systems including ÄKTA start, ÄKTA go, ÄKTA pure 25 and ÄKTA avant 25, plus discontinued legacy systems such as ÄKTAprime plus, ÄKTAxpress ÄKTA Purifyer and ÄKTA FPLC (some these models were built by GE Healthcare or Amersham Pharmacia Biotech). Several alternative DEGASi® degasser designs are available for chromatography systems with higher or lower flow rate specifications.

Please contact Biotech Fluidics for any questions or concerns regarding what degasser best would suit your needs in terms of flow rates and solvent compatibility.

Did you know that Biotech Fluidics custom manufacture tubing kits for dissolution testing equipment and for other purposes?

In pharmaceutical dissolution testing, the solution into which the medication is gradually dissolved, is sampled repeatedly over a certain time period at standardised conditions, to determine the rate of release of an active ingredient. Instruments for these tests are typically designed to perform several parallel experiments in separate vessels. Although sampling could be performed manually, automatic sampling and analysis allow for considerably increased throughput. Automatic sampling typically requires multiple transfer lines to be connected to each vessel for sample withdrawal. This may quickly build up to handling many different sorts of tubing and fitting components to stock for a certain system. Purchasing pre-made tubing kits from Biotech Fluidics can help you simply the setup and execution of these test.

Our long experience in inert and chemically resistant tubing and first-class fittings for a wide variety of requirements, combined with a high-quality assembly line with skilled staff, makes Biotech Fluidics your perfect partner for any tubing kit manufacturing. Tubing kits can be adapted to fit any brand dissolution instrument on the market, including for example Agilent, Bioevopeak, Distek, Electrolab, Erweka, Hanson, Logan, Pharmtest, Sotax, Teledyne, Toron, and certainly also to other types of instruments. Contact Biotech Fluidics to discuss your specific requirements.

Biotech Fluidics has recently launched a new series of DEGASi® online degassers, designed for integration into analytical or production instrument assemblies. The new degassers are featured with an electronic validation output signal that corresponds to the level of vacuum within the degasser (5 mV/mmHg). This quality allows your instrument software to continuously monitor the degasser performance and present that to the user. If the vacuum level would not meet the set requirements, this feature enables providing the user with adequate warnings or even prevent certain instrument events. This ability to integrate monitoring of your degasser performance is in line with recent regulatory demands regarding instrument performance qualification and is for example aligning with the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) general chapter 1058.

For more information about this new series of DEGASi® Integration degassers with validation output, or to discuss the selection of degasser for your application, please contact Biotech Fluidics.

The new Solvent Line Monitor from Biotech Fluidics is a small stand-alone device that efficiently detects bubbles in solvent flow lines and then send electronic trigger signals or activate acoustic alarms.

This clever monitor can safeguard your laboratory against running out of solvent in critical applications, thus avoiding faulty analysis results, system downtime, or even extensive equipment maintenance. The device is perfect for liquid chromatography and HPLC systems and can be set up to automatically trigger a pump shutdown or a switching valve when a solvent flow line becomes empty or contains too many micro bubbles.

New periodic table of fittings

The poster ‘Periodic Table of the Analytical Fittings’ is available in a new updated version.

This very useful visual overview poster presents a wide range of fittings for analytical liquid handling systems in a structured and comprehensive layout (inspired by the periodic table of elements). Here you can get quick information about suitable fittings for a certain port design, for a certain tubing size, and for a certain pressure rating. Each of the 117 fittings are presented with clear information about suitable ferrule combinations and material details, with an indication if any tools are required to tighten the fitting, as shown by the examples in the excerpt picture. Order your printed copy from Biotech Fluidics or download the pdf version by following the link below: