Porvair Microplate Evaporators

Porvair Microplate Evaporators

Porvair evaporators are designed to remove the traditional laboratory ‘bottleneck’ of solvent evaporation from microplates prior to analysis or reconstitution in storage buffer. These evaporators give significant throughput advantages to laboratories looking to optimise microplate sample preparation productivity. Faster than centrifugal evaporation, significant increases in sample throughput are achieved through advanced evaporator head technology and an innovative manifold design, which directly injects heated nitrogen into each individual well of the microplate simultaneously. The evaporators have been designed to be simple to install, operate and maintain. Installation requires only connection to a gas supply or cylinder and mains electricity. Safety of operation is ensured as the CE marked compact units fit into all fume cupboards. Not suitable for high boiling solvents such as DMSO and water. Both MiniVap and UltraVap may be operated with a supply of clean, dry compressed air in place of nitrogen, if the chemistry allows. An in-line gas filter must be used in this case.

Nitrogen blow-down

The nitrogen blow-down principle is easy to understand. Warm gas is blown down into the wellsof the microplate, just above the liquid level.The effect is to speed up solvent evaporation byproviding more energy for the latent heat ofevaporation. This enables a steady-state equilibriumto be reached more quickly, leading to shorter dryingtimes. Nitrogen blow-down has been shown to be theeasiest way to automate the frequent bottleneckscaused by the requirement to remove solvent fromsamples that need to be concentrated, dried orreconstituted in a more suitable solvent.

Solvent compatibility

With a choice of 96 straight or 96 spiral needles, plus 24 and 384 straight needles, the sphere of applicationfor Ultravap and MiniVap evaporators is huge. Mostcommon chromatography solvents can be evaporatedwith ease, such as dichloromethane, methanol,acetonitrile and hexane. The nitrogen blow-downmethod is not, however, suitable for high-boilingpoint solvents such as DMF, DMSO and water. It isalso unable to be used with acids or acid chlorides, asspecial corrosion-resistant systems are needed for thiswork. The choice of straight or spiral needles allowsthe user to choose between faster dry down (spiral)and better final drying in V-well plates (straight).The spirals cause a vortex to form in the solvent,increasing the surface area and thus speeding up therate of evaporation. However, for plates withV-bottom wells, or for smaller wells such as those in 384-well plates, straight needles are required.

The MiniVap is purpose designed for low usage research and development departments where low numbers of individual plates or vials need drying. The MiniVap is simple to operate and maintain. Installation requires only connection to a gas supply and standard mains socket. With manual control of the needle depth, gas temperature and flow rate, it allows fine control and quicker drying times than other standard methods.

The Ultravap Mistral may be operated with a supply of clean, dry compressed air in place of nitrogen, if the chemistry allows. An in-line gas filter must be used in this case. The new Ultravap Mistral is the latest fully robot-compatible nitrogen blow-down evaporator, suitable for integration adjacent to several leading laboratory liquid handling robots. Designed with the demands of linear robots very much in mind, the Ultravap Mistral offers a plate shuttle which can serve and retrieve plates from the deck of Perkin Elmer, Tecan, Hamilton and Beckman liquid handlers. The colour touch-screen controlled dry down station accepts 24-, 48-, 96- or 384-well plates and comes complete with clear safety side screens and integral fume management leading to a 4 inch duct adaptor.