Interview with Dr Tom McInally at The University of Nottingham as to the benefits of the Smart Evaporator
Q：What type of laboratory are you in charge of?
A：We have been using the Smart Evaporator particularly well in our Medicinal Chemistry teaching module in an undergraduate teaching laboratory where we synthesise and we send samples to our partner laboratory (Industrial Pharma company) for biological screening.
Q：Why try the Smart Evaporator?
A：To prepare a 3-5mg sample for biological screening in the vials of choice of our partner and 1 mg sample for LCMS analysis.
Q：How many types of vial are used in conjunction with your Smart Evaporator?
A：Let me show you: From left to right (shown with Smart Evaporator Spiral Plugs) Larger volume storage vial, Test vial for partner screening system, Recovery vial for NMR samples, usually in DMSO works very well, LCMS vial sent to partner for QC.
Q：What are you generally evaporating?
A：Final compounds after purification by Flash Chromatography, HPLC, SPE and after Crystallizations too. We find that by dissolving a known amount of compound we can then evaporate to dryness making it easy to get precise amounts of material per vial.
Q：What did you use before the Smart Evaporator?
A：Before we had to use a standard Rotary Evaporator, it was not easy to do. We made a special adapter to fit the vials onto the Rotary Evaporator but contamination and bumping was a serious issue. The Smart Evaporator almost totally eliminates these issues. These small samples also tied up the Rotary Evaporator for long periods of time when it was more often needed (and suitable for) for large volume flask evaporation. We also found removing DMSO almost impossible with the Rotary Evaporator where as in the Smart Evaporator it works well.
Q：Have you tried round Bottom Flask evaporation?
A：Yes in small flasks of 25ml round bottom flasks it works well, especially taking water/methanol samples to dryness after SPE
Q：Other post synthesis benefits?
A：Allows ease to swap solvents so for instance removing Acetonitrile andDMF for ease of work up
Q：What scales are you generally working on?
A：2-50mg per ml
Q：How easy has it been to use the Smart evaporator?
A：Undergraduate students have found it very easy to use unsupervised, they have also been very keen to continue using the Smart evaporator as its proven much easier to use than the Rotary Evaporators.
(Interviewer: Martyn Fordham, Asynt)
Reference：http://www.asynt.com/2016/11/30/smart-evaporator-university-nottingham/
■Interested in what Smart Evaporator is? You can learn from here!