Solvent evaporation/concentration
Solvent evaporation/concentration is a critical step in the sample preparation process used by the clinical, food, environmental, pharmaceutical, chemical, and biotechnology industries. Because so many different types of samples and solvents are used for evaporation or concentration, no single technique can provide a universal solution. Over the years, many evaporation and concentration systems have been developed to address the range of applications and various market segments. These systems are based on nitrogen gas, vacuum pumps, cold traps, and heating technologies. There have been many new developments in dry heating baths as well as direct-to-vial endpoint delivery that are ready for deployment to an analytical instrument.
Laboratories today benefit from more consistent, reproducible results thanks to new concentration technologies that improve sample integrity and reduce the costly errors and intensive labor associated with the final manual transfer step. An understanding of the most up-to-date evaporation and concentration processes, their application at a practical level, and use of the latest equipment permits optimization of protocols for improved and more rapid sample concentration.