Instrumentation suppliers

Instrument suppliers are well acquainted with the design, construction, promotion, and sale of their products. The analytical problemsolving capabilities thereof are more often than not demonstrated on textbook variety problems that are only remotely indicative of a machine/software combination s usefulness. If software is tailored toward showroom effectiveness, the later user suffers. 

MWG-Biotech - An Instrumentation Supplier Develops into a Genomics Company... 

Training. There may be a need to send users to the instrument supplier to take operation and maintenance training. The traveling and tuition should be included in the budget. 

Vendor s reliability. The vendor that supplies the instrument should have a track record of providing high-quality instruments and after-sale support. A vendor audit should be conducted for a new instrument supplier to evaluate the company s ability to build high-quality products. Purchasing an instrument from a financially unstable vendor is risky. 

At present, the manufacturers listed below deliver reliable instruments with satisfactory working software. The type of instruments and models are not listed because the models change frequently and the software is updated almost annually. Users may select from a variety of beam splitters, detectors, computer memory, and software. The entire spectral range, from the far infrared through the near infrared, is covered by various FTIR instruments. Instrument suppliers include Analect (USA), Bomem (Canada), Bruker (FRG), Bio-Rad, Digilab Division (USA), Mattson (USA), Jasco (Japan), Nicolet (USA), and Perkin-Elmer (UK). Accessory manufacturers include Spectra-Tech Inc. (USA), Specac (UK, USA), Harrick Scientific Corp. (USA), and AAB SPEC (USA). 

Experience gained during seven years with a leading instrumentation supplier proved tome that manufacturers cook-books were too restrictive — limited to their producers hardware — and that the majority of other published analytical methodologies were either not specific enough or by their disparate availability required the routine analyst to do a lot of library work. 

At the 1999 Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry, Piechocki presented a paper titled "Pharmaceutical Photostability Testing—Black Box Chemistry" (17) in which these and other problems were highlighted. For the most part, the challenge for instrument suppliers posed in this presentation was ignored. Stand alone, relatively inexpensive, self-contained, broadband, spectroradiometers, such a Luzchem s SPR-01 (l6) are rare. 

A number of instrument suppliers as well as engineering specialty houses are able to install in-line NIR hardware in production settings. For up-to-date listings and manufacturers, a newcomer (or even experienced user) should scan the Internet, attend meetings such as PittCon, IFPAC, and more specialized conferences such as the International Diffuse Reflectance Conference... 

There are several different types of nebulisers available from local instrument suppliers (Figure 2.9). They are expensive due to the inert material used and precise engineering required to make them. The size of the hole for the gas outlet must be big enough to sustain the very high pressure required to force the sample solution to move violently and rapidly throughout the spray chamber and small enough to create a very high pressure. The two most commonly used nebulisers are pneumatic and ultrasonic. 

Essentially all instrument suppliers are present on the Internet. As combinatorial synthesis is a fast-moving field, the Internet is the information source of choice. 

There is not an extensive recent scientific literature devoted to these methods but many of the instrument suppliers provide technical details and specifications in their literature and websites [4, 5]. 

The apparatus needed for tests is considered in conjunction with the test procedures, but in many cases it is not an easy matter to select from the range of apparatus available in differing levels of sophistication or, indeed, to be able to find any supplier at all. The Test Equipment and Services Directory (published by Rapra Technology. England, in hard copy and on CD) contains both advice on selection and a comprehensive guide to instrument suppliers. 

Peel testers consist basically of a test stand, calibrated force gauges, digital readouts, various sizes and configurations of grips/clamps, and software programs. Peel testers are available from many instrument suppliers. 

Basic features of instruments for polymer HPLC are briefly outlined in this chapter. As a rule, the operator can only a little affect its construction. The differences between apparatus for polymer HPLC and for HPLC of low-molecular substances are described more in detail in section 11.6.1.3, with emphasis on the column packings. To avoid advertisement, the names of instrument suppliers are not presented. A general practical hint for operators in polymer HPLC Instrument performance quoted by producers is often too optimistic. 

The Brabender Plasticorder will provide meaningful data for a specific compound s flow life or duration when exposed to the thermal condition previously described. It measures the viscosity and gel time, and results can be correlated to the performance of a componnd dnring molding operations. The instrument supplier is... 

The current availability of digital coulometers from instrument suppliers such as Wenking or P. A.R. makes coulometric monitoring of organic electrode... 

This technique is at its most useful in organic structure identification and has numerous applications in polymer analysis. Instrument suppliers are listed in Appendix 1. 

Your instrument supplier should also be a resource to be used for his/her advice concerning the analysis of intractable samples, and help in training, interpretation and macro-programming. Insist on talking to the application scientist rather than just the salesperson. 

Again, the instrument supplier should be able to guide the customer through the first trials. How many samples are needed, how often should they be taken, and how much sample is needed are questions best answered with the aid of an applications specialist. Keep in mind that a working referee method is needed to assay all these samples so that a prediction equation may be designed. The eventual accuracy of the prediction is dependent on the accuracy of the referee method. 

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