HPLC laboratory safety products
How do you minimise health risks in your lab?
In every lab particular consideration must be given to hazardous substances. In everyday lab work however, lab workers become accustomed to the permanent threat and tend to lose their respect even for toxic chemicals. Therefore, we often see pieces of foil on eluent bottles or a lid loosely resting on waste containers as “safety arrangements”. But does that really do the work? How does one reduce the health hazards in the lab?
S.C.A.T. S.C.A.T. SafetyCap caps are a hazard-free and practical solution for the safe supply of solvents for analytical and preparative HPLC. They combine a valve for incoming air and up to six tube connectors for liquid streams.
The air valve in the SafetyCap works as a check valve and includes a filter for the incoming air: Harmful solvent vapours are blocked so that they stay inside the solvent bottle and your staff is protected from breathing contaminated air. At the same time, the filter membrane keeps air-borne particles from entering your solvent bottles and changing the composition of your solvents.
The fittings in the SafetyCap tightly secure the tubes so that they do not slip out of place possibly causing interruptions of solvent supply. The SafetyCap can still be easily changed to another solvent bottle, even with the tubes installed. The tight fittings also prevent solvent contamination and help slowing down composition changes of pre-mixed solvents, both benefiting your HPLC results.
Safe disposal of liquid waste is just as important since the fluids in the waste containers often form an uncontrolled poisonous mixture. The S.C.A.T. SafetyWasteCap is especially efficient since tubes of different sizes and from several systems can be connected to one waste container.
But most importantly, the SafetyWasteCaps have an active charcoal exhaust filter that cleans solvent vapours from the exhaust air and makes your lab a healthier place to work.
Improve chromatographic results by preventing retention time shifts from concentration changes in solvents due to evaporation.
Protecting health. Contamination can be significantly reduced through the use of SCAT SafetyCaps. Measurements conducted by an officially accredited laboratory resulted in a 73% reduction of contaminant concentrations in the condition of the indoor air.
Saving money. Fewer chemicals are needed - SCAT Safety Caps prevent the leakage and waste of expensive solvents that would otherwise end up in the fume hood.
Optimising the work flow. All safety caps rotate freely without twisting tubes. Even when using several connectors, the container can be quickly replaced without twisting any tubes.
Protecting the environment. All measures simultaneously serve to guarantee the protection of our environment.
If you have experienced the following:
- Split peaks
- Distortion of early peaks
- Secondary retention effects
- Extra peaks
- Retention and time drifts
- Abrupt retention changes
- Base line drift
- Broad peaks
- Loss of resolution,
the cause was very like to be related to mobile phase composition changes. A shift of all peaks in one direction without a change in t0 represents a change in the mobile phase. Such changes are often caused by the reduction of at least one liquid mobile phase component due to evaporation or improper mixing procedures.
When retention time changes for selected peaks, the most common source of problems includes mobile phase pH and buffer concentration. Depending on the pKa, the retention time of ionizable compounds can shift up to 10% when the mobile phase pH changes by as little as 0.1 pH unit.