Grover David Owens

Separation of malto-oligosaccharide derivatives by capillary supercritical fluid chromatography and supercritical fluid chromatography-mass spectrometry

Pressure-programmed, capillary supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) can be used to separate silylated malto-oligosaccharides of degree of polymerization (d.p.) 1 to beyond 20 in a single analysis

Laboratory robotics — Past, present, and future

In the past four years, laboratory robotics has emerged as an important subset of automation technology. It offers chemists an approach to tackling the difficult problems that arise when attempting to automate sample preparation procedures. Successful implementations of this technology yield cost and labor savings, improved assay precision, increased data output, improved morale, and improved worker safety. This paper introduces the principles of this growing technology, summarizes the current state of the art, and suggests some of its future possibilities. The principles of laboratory robotics are discussed in the context of a system developed from an in-house technology base. This system has been performing pH and fluoride determinations for the past two years. The current state of laboratory robotics technology is examined by presenting our experiences with an all-commercial immunoassay system from Zymark. The future of this technology is very promising. Recent innovations by a variety of vendors promise to make the technology easier to use. In the next decade, the combination of more powerful microcomputers and software should produce systems that can “learn” and optimize their own performance.