Benchmate product

There are signs that companies are becoming increasingly aware of the industrial market and some attempts have been made to develop a systematic approach to this problem. Whereas in chnical chemistry the matrix is usually blood or urine, in the industrial area there are many varied matrices. The volume of sales for any matrix is often insufficient to justify the development investment required. An alternative philosophy is needed to meet the requirements economically. The Mettler range of automatic instruments provides one example of a systematic approach to automate a range of analysers. More recently the Zymark Corporation (Zymark Center, Hopkinton, Massachusetts, USA), in the introduction of its Benchmate products, has defined procedures which can be tailored to individual laboratory needs by using essentially similar modules. These modules are coordinated with a simphfled robotic arm. Several tailor-made systems have been developed which have a wide appeal and are easily configurable to particular needs. 

Both of the above approaches have hmitations, the first due to difficulties in relating results to calibration data, and the second because it becomes prohibitively expensive to cater for every situation in an instrumental approach, ffowever, in this respect Zymark has made significant progress by the introduction of the Benchmate products. These are tailored to a specific market area such as the sample preparation of pharmaceutical products prior to HPLC analyses. Thus, cost-effective solutions can be swiftly tailored to specific market areas. As progress is made on these products, it is Hkely that third party vendors will start to generate specific modules for individual customer needs. 

Preparation of 32 [39] The reaction set-up and product purification procedures were carried out using fhe Zymark Benchmate Robotic Workstation. 

Amines or sulfonamides (1.0 mmol) and 2,5-dimethoxytetrahydfuran (0.2 g, 15 mmol) were mixed in 3 mL of ether in a round-bottomed flask, after which 500 mg of montmorillonite K-10 was added. After 5 min stirring, the solvent was evaporated in vacuo to produce the dry mixture of reactants adsorbed on the catalyst surface. The dry mixture was transferred to a reaction tube (10 cm long and 1 cm in diameter) and irradiated in a focused microwave reactor (CEM Discover Benchmate) at standard temperature (100 °C). The reaction temperature was determined and maintained by a built-in infrared temperature detector-controller. After satisfactory conversion, ether was added to the cold mixture, and the product was separated from catalyst by gravity filtration. The products were isolated as crystals or oils and purified by flash chromatography. 

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