Please stop by to visit us at Booth 2722 to see samples of:
REFRACTi™ MASTER update
The new REFRACTi™ MASTER RI detector from Biotech Fluidics excels in every aspect, and it is perfect for determination of compounds with low UV absorbance including simple sugars, complex carbohydrates, alcohols, fatty acids, and polymers.
With a 4.3” touch panel, intuitive user interface and features as extended temperature range up to 80 °C, this is a refractive index detector truly built for modern HPLC analysis. The detector do also have an automatic detection of sample path blockage, as well as a built-in overpressure safety assembly to prevent any cell breakage in case of blockage.
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:
2007 the ledgendary entreprenuer Ralf Jutvik and Analytical Chemist Anders Grahn met and decided to start a new company ꟷ Biotech. 15 years later the company has transformed from a small start-up to become an important global supplier of great fluidic solutions to leading instrument manufacturers and distributors, with offices in the US and Japan and sales to 40 countries.
For more than 15 years we have developed and delivered innovative laboratory products to instrument manufacturers and distributors across the world. We specialize in chromatography and finding solutions to issues with gases and bubbles in fluidic systems. By using our advanced degassers, the laboratory is able to optimize the performance of its analytical instruments and chromatographic equipment. Our degassing solutions save the industry both time and money by avoiding production disruptions caused by bubbles in the fluidic lines.
Our mission is to empower you to design and assemble unique products by being a reliable partner for fluidic components, offering first-class service, in-depth knowledge and advanced technical support for all the items we provide. We work closely with our customers and participate in a variety of research projects with well-known European and American companies and institutions. In this way, we can take advantage of the synergy effects that occur between research and applied technology.
For one purchase during the period 7th to 25th November, we offer a 15% discount on our Biotech Liquid Flow Meter AND a bag with Sweden’s most purchased car 😉 AND a wireless cellphone charger. Add “free charger” to your order.
Press release 2022-10-26
Katarina Alenäs new board member of Biotech
Biotech is expanding on the international market. In order to continue the growth journey the company is strengthening the board with Katarina Alenäs, who has long-term experience from the field of analytical instrumentation.
Katarina Alenäs has a current position as Senior Vice President Chromatography at Nanologica AB which is a Swedish biotech company focused on nanoporous silica. She holds a M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Lunds Tekniska Högskola and B.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Greenwich University and has a long experience in the LifeScience area in general and Chromatography in particular.
Katarina has previously held several commercial management roles at Agilent Technologies and worked at Shimadzu in Chromatography sales. She started her career as a Development engineer for Kromasil’s silica-based packing media for preparative chromatography 25 years ago.
Anders Grahn
Chairman of the Board & Founder, Biotech AB
About Biotech AB
Biotech AB supplies innovative laboratory products to instrument manufacturers & distributors around the world. With sales offices in Minnesota, USA and Fuji, Japan the company have a high global coverage which is important when having large international instrument manufacturers as customers. Biotech AB is specialized in fluidic components for analytical- and biotechnology instrumentation, but serve also other fields such as medtech. The companies market leading degassing solutions save the industry both time and money by avoiding production disruptions caused by bubbles in the fluidic lines.
Biotech Fluidics offers high-efficiency in line degassing equipment to obtain >90% removal of dissolved gasses from liquids, employing vacuum-based degassing. Some applications, however, require the opposite, i.e. enrichment of certain gasses in given liquids. Utilizing the reversed principle of vacuum-based degassing, we here present new insight on the vacuum-chamber, which can evidently be used to enrich fluids with gases of interest. By applying an over-pressure of a given gas on the chamber, through which your fluid of interest is pumped, the amount of dissolved gas can be substantially increased, allowing you to regulate the gas content in a highly controlled manner.
The principle was demonstrated by pumping tap water through a 9000-1523 degassing chamber with and without over-pressure of air (0.15 MPa). As expected, the enrichment of oxygen is highly temperature dependent, while the flowrate displays a negligible impact. With the current setup, the amount of dissolved oxygen could easily be increased by 100%, corresponding to an absolute enrichment of approximately 6.7 mg/ml at 10 °C and 7 ml/min. Due to lower solubility of gasses at high temperatures, the enrichment was 2.6 mg/ml at 50 °C and 7 ml/min, yet corresponding to 67% increase.
This shows the dual functionality of the vacuum chamber, which appears to be not only great for degassing purposes, but is also a terrific device for dissolved gas enrichment. Using such a chamber you can now easily add an in-line mechanism to your setup to boost the solutions with gasses of interest.
Learn more about the Biotech Fluidics vacuum chambers at the product webpages linked below, or contact Biotech Fluidics to discuss the most appropriate chamber for your application.
Modern online degassers used in liquid chromatography, (U)HPLC, and other instruments handling liquids with high precision and accuracy, are fortunately essentially maintenance-free. However, there are a few things to keep in mind not to shorten the lifetime of your online degasser.
Firstly, one should always use a degassing chamber that is compatible with the solvents that will be used. Organic solvents such as hexane, heptane, toluene, tetrahydrofurane (THF), and dichloromethane (DCM), typically demand specially designed degassing chambers. These degassing chambers are often labelled GPC to highlight their suitability in gel permeation chromatography, but they are equally suitable for normal phase and flash chromatography applications where such organic solvents are also employed.
As with any fluidic component it is advised not to leave your degassing chamber with liquid inside when disconnected from use. This is especially important when there are salts or buffer components dissolved into the liquid since they may precipitate. Precipitates will block the flow path and are notoriously very problematic to wash out again. In addition, buffered aqueous solutions exposed to open air may constitute an attractive environment for microbial growth, which can also cause blockage of the flow path.
Finally, it is strongly recommended to always suck solutions through the degassing chambers, rather than pumping or pushing liquids through them. The internal semi-permeable membrane material that allows gases to penetrate while blocking liquids, is designed to withstand a certain pressure difference. That limit may accidentally be exceeded if liquids are pumped too fast into the degassing chamber, which may cause irreparable damage.
Biotech Fluidics is dedicated to supporting our customers and we look forward to guiding you to the most suitable degasser model for your application. Special design options might also be available on request, including for example, high pressure rated degassing chambers.
Are you dreaming about trouble-free and consistent low-pressure tubing connections? Would a fitting providing this facilitate your laboratory life? Especially in locations where you frequently exchange fluid path components, such as flash columns, in-line filters or eluent bottles?
The new Intuitive™ fitting system with its patented self-adjusting torque-limiting nut for low pressure applications, provides a haptic feedback click when it has been sufficiently tightened. You never again have to worry about leaking connections, nor about overtightening and squeezing tubes or damaging ports. The click feedback is built to work for at least 80 repeated assemblies and is thus ideal in positions where components are changed frequently. Being designed for ¼”-28 ports compatible with Flanged, Flangeless, and Super Flangeless ferrule designs, and available in versions for both 1/16” and 1/8” OD tubing, we are confident this is the most easy-to-use, flexible and intuitive low-pressure fitting system available. Hence the name.
Biotech Fluidics can deliver the Intuitive™ connection system as pre-mounted components in ready-made kits, allowing you to save time and effort at your assembly station. Contact us to learn more or check out the product page linked below.
The knitted open tubular (KOT) coil reactors from Biotech Fluidics are designed to maintain plug flow in a variety of liquid flow systems. They accomplish this through a winding flow path design that enhance radial mixing, while minimizing axial dispersion. This makes KOT reactors ideal flow elements to allow time for reactions, or for automatic decision making during a continuous flow. These features make KOT reactors popular for example, in plug flow chemistry reaction development or in liquid chromatography reaction detection.
To showcase the potential of KOT reactors, we had an experiment performed to compare the effect on chromatographic peaks when transported through a KOT reactor, versus when being conveyed through a straight tube of identical material and dimensions. The setup was suppressed ion chromatography, but the outcomes would apply to any flowing liquid of similar linear flow rate and viscosity. The results clearly show that the KOT reactor prevented most of undesired axial mixing and preserved the peak integrity, only causing a peak broadening of 3-11%. In contrast, the peaks passing through a straight tube of identical dimension and volume, were affected up to ten times more and increased in width by 32-70%. This distinctly displays that the straight tube exposed the peaks to significantly more zone dilution by the transport liquid compared to the KOT reactor.
The applied linear flow rate in this experiment was 10 cm/s (1.2 mL/min), which corresponds to the lowest recommended flow rate to establish stable radial mixing in a KOT reactor with the present internal diameter (0.5 mm). At higher flow rates it would thus be expected that the dispersion in the straight tube would be even more problematic relative to the KOT reactor. All data in this example were generated by an independent laboratory (Diduco AB) according to established scientific principles.
Learn more about the Biotech Fluidics KOT reactors at the product webpages linked below, or contact Biotech Fluidics to discuss the most appropriate KOT reactor for your application.
Experimental details: An ion chromatography setup separating chloride and sulphate (10 µM in water) using a Shodex SI-90 4E column (250×4 mm) operated with an eluent of 3.9 mM NaHCO3 and 3.1 M Na2CO3 delivered at 1.2 mL/min. The delay flow element (KOT or straight tube 0.5 mm ID, 4 m length, 785 µL volume) was inserted between the suppressor (XAMS membrane suppressor automatically regenerated by ASUREX-A200), and the conductivity detector cell. Injection of 50 µL standard solution created original peak volumes (at triangulated base) of 210 µL and 440 µL, respectively. Data was plotted compensated for delay volume to facilitate visual comparison. Experiments performed by Diduco AB (www.diduco.com).
The KOT tubular coil reactors from Biotech Fluidics are the ideal delay elements to preserve plug flow while allowing time for reactions or other events in a stream of flowing liquid. Whether employed in the context of flow chemistry synthesis, or in more traditional liquid chromatography setups, the KOT reactors provide an unmatched capability of preventing zones from mixing with the surrounding upstream and downstream liquid in a flowing stream. This feature can be used to maintain high concentrations of reagents during plug flow chemistry reaction development, with minimum dilution by the transport liquid. Originally, KOT reactors were designed to preserve the integrity of chromatographic peaks during post-column reaction detection in HPLC. They were later applied to allow time for data collection and automatic decision making during online monitoring of semi-preparative liquid chromatography fractionation. Both these are still important application areas. The picture below shows some typical set-ups incorporating KOT reactors in these different systems handling plug flow in fluid streams.
The capability of the knitted open tubular (KOT) coil reactor is a result of a principle that is both simple and clever. By an intricate winding design with frequently alternating direction in three dimensions, the flowing liquid is exposed to centrifugal forces. This pushes the liquid to mix radially, thereby minimizing axial dispersion and dilution. Constructed from inert poly(tetrafluoroethene) [PTFE] material, the Biotech Fluidics KOT reactors are translucent and can thus easily be used in photochemistry, as well as temperature-controlled environments. Applicable flow rates range from about 0.3 mL/min up to several tenths of millilitres per minute. The total residence times can be varied from a few seconds up to several minutes, depending on dimensions, flow rates, and the number of KOT reactors combined in series.
Consult the Biotech Fluidics KOT product webpages and brochure for more information about available dimensions and recommended operational conditions. Biotech Fluidics will also be at your service to discuss the most appropriate KOT reactor for your application.
