Smart Evaporator Solved Bumping Issue

Today we interviewed a professor whose research theme is the application of organic chemistry to nanomaterials.

(Interviewee: Professor Naoki Komatsu, Komatsu Laboratory, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University)

┃Dr. Komatsu's research theme

With an academic background in synthetic organic chemistry, I am studying the functionalization of nanoparticles, mainly for applications in the medical field.

┃How Smart Evaporator is used

We use it almost every day. A Smart Evaporator is used to concentrate the fractions separated by the column and to completely remove the solvent.
<Experimental conditions - solvent, sample volume etc.>
Usually, several mL of sample is processed. As the organic solvents, THF, hexane, dichloromethane, chloroform are mostly used. Aqueous solvents are also often used for materials related to medical applications.

┃Issues before introduction

We used to use a rotary evaporator before and as we needed to store the fraction in a sample vial finally, we had to set a connector inside of an eggplant flask to do so. This caused bumping, which increased the need to work again, resulting in a significant loss of works.

<Causes of bumping and how often they occurred>
Well, about once every 10 times. For example, at that time it took almost 25 minutes to dry and store a 4 mL sample. Since a bumping would result in the loss of that amount of work, avoiding the risk of bumping was the most important issue. The students also tried to fill the vials with as much sample as possible because we did not want to use unnecessarily large storage vials. This may have led to frequent bumping.

┃How Smart Evaporator was introduced

After getting information from the Internet and from other professors about applications that could solve the problem, we decided to test a Smart Evaporator demo unit. We purchased one unit because it was clear from the demo use that it would solve the risk of bumping, which had been a problem for us.

┃What we felt on actual use

We feel that the good thing about this device is that it avoids the risk of bumping and is easy to work with.
As the sample vials for storage can be used directly for concentration process and the risk of bumping is eliminated, it reduced the time required to about 10 minutes. It made the work much easier.
In our laboratory, we consider organic materials chemistry as a gateway and its medical application as an exit.
Organic synthesis work is required to functionalize the materials and we feel that the instrument like Smart Evaporator is very convenient device that avoids the risk of bumping and allows us to concentrate using the sample vial for storage.

Summary

This time we interviewed Dr. Komatsu, whose laboratory is pursuing useful materials that may have medical applications, and in particular, in the process of chemical synthesis to connect them to nano-materials through organic chemistry, he is using a smart evaporator.

 

In Dr. Komatsu's laboratory, there have been a need for the laboratory to store samples as efficiently as possible using sample vials. For example, it was better to store samples with 5 ml volume in 5 ml vials than in 20 ml vials, and the vials were not unnecessarily large for efficiency, but however, the large volume amount in relation to the vial volume sometimes resulted in a bumping.

 

This time, Smart Evaporator eliminated the risk of bumping, and the ability to use the desired sample vial for concentration without changing the vial was a good example of how it led to increased work efficiency.

 

(Interviewer: Toshi Kikuchi)

 

 

 

■Interested in what Smart Evaporator is? You can learn from here!

 

Secured By miniOrange