Facilities

The SP-UV 500 is a double beam spectrophotometer in the production series of Spectrum Instruments. It gets a technology patent - "space separated double beam, Non-Symmetric vertical optical path". Compared with traditional double beam technology, simplified optical path improves reliability. The "width narrow and depth deep" design saves placement room.

Thermo Scientific Forma 700 Series offers reliable performance and no-frills functionality. These basic -80°C chest freezers feature an information center with programmable controls, temperature display, and an optional chart recorder or datalogger built into the base. Sublids for holding temperature are standard.

The process of applying sound energy to agitate particles or discontinuous fibers in a liquid is known as sonication and since ultrasonic frequencies (>20 kHz) are usually used, the process is also known as ultrasonication. Ultrasonication may be used for the preparation of nanoparticle materials and graphene dispersions, cell lysing, sample preparation, homogenization, ChIP Assay, emulsification, disaggregation and deagglomeration as well as various uses in sonochemical processing. There are three main parts of a sonicator, namely generator which transforms the input electrical power into an electrical signal to drive the transducer, transducer which converts the electric signal into vibration, and probe which creates the pressure-producing sound waves, causing liquid streaming and rapid bubble formation which will vibrate violently and collapse as they reach their saturation level in the process called cavitation. Cavitation leads to dispersion, homogenization, disintegration, emulsions, extraction, and sonochemical effects of the liquids. With the features of programmable, variable power output, 10 hour timer, pulse mode, wattage and energy display, temperature monitoring and energy setpoint, the Sonics & Materials VCX 500 ultrasonic homogenizer offers 500 Watts of power to handle a range of liquid processing applications of volume 2000 µl - 1 L.

Vacuum drying operates under vacuum and allows the removal of moisture at controlled low temperatures, conferring the advantages over other drying processes such as having higher drying rate, lower drying temperature, and oxygen-deficient processing environment. It has been widely applied in various industries including pharmaceutical, food, plastics and textile industries. Vacuum drying oven which is also known as vacuum dryer or vacuum oven is specially designed for drying heat sensitive, easily decomposed and easily oxidized substances as well as for removing flammable solvents. Operation of a vacuum drying oven involves the use of a vacuum pump to substantially lower the pressure of the surrounding medium to decrease the boiling point of the liquid present in the substance. Reduced boiling point increases the evaporation rate of the liquid and thus fastens the drying rate of the substance, allowing drying at much lower temperatures than the regular air oven. Adding a vacuum controller to the vacuum oven is important as it provides precise control of the drying process, resulting in a more repeatable drying process and result. It also helps to slow down initial pump down of vacuum drying process, preventing lighter materials from being sucked into the vacuum pump.

Stability testing of pharmaceutical products is a routine procedure conducted at various stages of product development for the prediction of shelf life, determination of proper storage conditions and recommendation of appropriate labelling instructions. Accelerated stability testing is usually used in early stages to determine the type of degradation products that may be found after long storage whereas shelf life and expiration dates may be determined by testing under less rigorous conditions. Stability chambers are widely employed in pharmaceutical laboratory, clinical trials, environmental simulation, material testing and ICH stability studies to create extremely stable temperature and humidity environments inside a closed cabinet for the analysis of the effects of pre-specified conditions on drugs, biological samples, electronic components and even industrial machine parts. The Capromax M200 stability chamber is suitable for accelerated or real-time stability tests, aging tests and conditional/environmental tests. It has unique thermodynamics and air flow design for unparalleled temperature and humidity uniformity in addition to high efficiency circulation fans for fast recovery of temperature and humidity. Besides, the LCD display and membrane keypad of Capromax M200 simplify its operation together with refrigerant system fault indicator lamps for the ease of maintenance and troubleshooting.

Tensile properties are often measured during the development of new materials and various processes to allow comparison, quality assurance as well as for the prediction of material behaviour under forms of loading other than uniaxial tension. Tensile strength tester is employed for various materials including plastic plates, tubes, profiles, plastic film, rubber, steel and fabric for their mechanical properties. Combining modern electronic technology with mechanical transmission technology, wide range of measurement, high precision and fast response can be provided by the tensile strength tester. The Lloyd LF Plus is a compact table top tensile test machine with easy to use control panel for force measurement and material testing applications up to 1 kN. It uses interchangeable XLC Series loadcells or a digital force gauge as the measurement device and it may be equipped with accessories such as grips, fixtures, compression frames and extensometers to suit the user’s purpose. The design of Lloyd LF Plus maximizes the working area to accommodate large specimens and it also simplifies the machine operation and maintenance.

Using visible light and a system of lenses to magnify images of small sample, optical microscopy allows the close viewing of samples at micron and submicron level investigations in various disciplines such as geology, medicine, and manufacturing. Advances in optical microscopy enables the visualization of submicron structures, determination of the surface profiles, and observation of selected cross sections of transparent materials without cutting the sample into thin slices. The Nikon Eclipse 50i Microscope is one of the laboratory microscopes commonly used in hospitals and research institutes. With the Nikon's CFI60 optical system, it is ideal for observation as well as image capture with a digital camera. The ergonomic design of the microscope has comfortable stage handles which remain in a fixed position during use, adjustable eyepieces and a refocusing stage, facilitating the long hour operation by the user. The super-hard Alumite coating on the stage creates a resistant surface, providing durability and preventing surface scratching with repeated slide exchanges. Besides, various accessories may be added to create the setup that best suits the purpose.

The Coulter counter is a method of counting and sizing based on the detection and measurement of changes in conductance produced by a particle or cell suspended in a conductive liquid upon a sample passing through a pinhole. Beckman Coulter Z1 Dual Threshold Coulter Counter is a general laboratory use instrument which can be used to determine the human and animal cell count and concentration. It is employed for the analysis of particles in liquids only. With Coulter counter, cell counting is possible together with information about the cell size. Particles or cells suspended in a conductive liquid function as discrete insulators and when a dilute suspension of particles traverse the aperture substantially one at a time, each particle passage displaces electrolyte within the aperture, momentarily changes the resistance between the two electrodes located on each side of the aperture and produces a voltage pulse of magnitude proportional to particle volume for counting and sizing. The particle count is indicated by the number of pulses while the particle volume is indicated by the amplitude of the electrical pulse produced. The Coulter approach confers several advantages such as high accuracy of counting and size measurements with relatively few restrictions, high sensitivity, excellent reproducibility, and high-resolution size information.

Coating is the process of applying an essentially dry, outer layer of coating material to the surface of a dosage form to confer specific advantages such as taste masking, odour masking, physical and chemical protection, protection against stomach acid, as well as to control the drug release profile. Coating may be applied to various oral solid dosage forms including tablets and granules. There are several technique available for tablet coating such as sugar coating, film coating and enteric coating. Spray pattern, drop size and nozzle spacing are some of the parameters that must be precisely controlled to ensure uniform distribution of the coating material. Tablet coating developed from the use of sugar for taste masking and appearance improvement and sugar coating involves five operations, namely sealing (to prevent moisture penetration into the tablet core), subcoating (to round the edges, increase tablet weight), syrup coating (to cover imperfections in tablet surface), colouring (to give tablet final colour) and polishing (to provide desired luster). However, sugar coating is a tedious and time-consuming process and is dependent on the skills of the operator, so it has been replaced by the film coating technology, a faster single-step process.

Tablet is a popular and versatile dosage form with advantages of ease of manufacturing, convenient administration, accurate dosing and stability compared with oral liquids, tamper proofness compared with capsules as well as safe compared with parenteral dosage forms. A tablet press or tablet compression machine is used to compress powder material or granules into tablets of uniform size, shape and weight by the combined pressing action of two punches and a die. Single and multi stationary tablet press are the two types of tablet press machines currently used for the production of tablets. As the simplest tableting equipment, the single stationary tablet press machine uses a single tooling station that has a die and a pair of upper and lower punches with the compression force exerted by the upper punch only while the lower punch remains stationary. On the other hand, multi stationary tablet press which is also known as rotary press due to the rotating tableting assembly is commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry due to its high production capacity and cost saving benefits. Karnavati Mini Press 1 Lab Scale Tablet Press Machine is a single sided rotary tablet press designed with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) considerations with ease of operation, maintenance and cleaning as well as controlled speed via ACVF drive. It runs at low noise level and possesses safety features for overload protection and limit switch at lower guard.

The process by which a solid solute enters a solution is known as dissolution. Dissolution test is an official test used by pharmacopeia to evaluate drug release of solid and semisolid dosage forms. It is an in vitro performance test procedure routinely performed for the quality control of oral solid dosage forms such as immediate or sustained release tablets and capsules, and its use has broadened to a variety of novel dosage forms. There are several applications of dissolution testing, which include biopharmaceutical characterization of drug product, as a tool to ensure consistency of product quality and for the prediction of in vivo drug bioavailability. Besides, dissolution test allows the development of a discriminatory method that is sensitive to variables affecting the dissolution rate. Design and operation of the apparatus as well as selection of medium may affect the release profile and thus absorption of drug. The United States Pharmacopeia (USP) describes the apparatuses employed in dissolution studies such as basket, paddle, reciprocating cylinder, and flow-through cell. Complies with several pharmacopoeia including USP, Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP) and Japanese Pharmacopoeia (JP), the Electrolab TDT-08L Dissolution Tester supports USP 1, 2, 5, 6 and intrinsic test methods and it is ideal for sustained and controlled release products. There are eight stations with easy Snap-Fit shafts for paddles and baskets. The magnetically coupled water circulating pump of the dissolution tester allows precise temperature control of the water bath and there is also programmable wake-up for the temperature control. The ergonomic design of TDT-08L facilitates the operation of the equipment.

Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS) is a technique based on the absorption of atomic spectral lines by the gas-phase atoms in their ground electronic states. It is employed to measure the quantities of chemical elements present in liquid or solid samples by measuring the absorbed radiation by the chemical element of interest. AAS is widely used in clinical chemistry laboratories for the analysis of various metals, including trace elements. There are four main components of the standard AAS instrument, which includes sample introduction area, light source, monochromator or polychromator, and the detector. After absorption, the analytes are first atomized for the emission of characteristic wavelengths from the excitation sources, the flame or graphite furnace. The atoms absorb a specific energy corresponds to a specific wavelength that is characteristic of the element and make transitions to higher energy levels. Specific elements can be detected and the concentrations can be measured depending on the wavelength and intensity. AAS, in most implementations is considered a “single element technique” in which only one element is determined at a time. With flame operation, the Perkin Elmer AAnalyst 100 atomic absorption spectrometer comes with air acetylene burner head, burner chamber, six lamp turret holder, background correction and safety drain bottle. It is sensitive, quick, and easily operable with the user-friendly data management software, AA winlab Analyst.

Gas chromatography (GC) is a chromatographic technique applying a gas as the mobile phase and solid or liquid as the stationary phase to analyze volatile substances in the gas phase. Chromatography allows the separation of components in a sample and it has become one of the most widely used techniques in modern analytical chemistry with various applications including food analysis, quality control, research and forensics. GC has gained popularity in analytical chemistry due to its very high selectivity and resolution, good accuracy and precision, wide dynamic concentration range, and high sensitivity. The GC equipment consists of a carrier gas system, injector, gas chromatographic column, detector and data processing unit. The sample, either a gas or a liquid is vaporized in the injection port. The carrier gas, typically helium transports the sample into the column where various components are separated. The detector measures the quantity of the components that exit the column. Measurement of a sample with unknown concentration can be performed by comparing the peak retention time (appearance time) and area of standard sample with known concentration. Perkin Elmer Autosystem is configured with single automatic split/splitless injector with pressure regulator and single flame ionization detector with controls for hydrogen and air. It is a high-performance instrument, incorporating electronic control with a fully integrated autosampler, capable of handling samples and injections of different volumes.

An absorbance microplate reader, or absorbance reader is able to detect and quantify the light photons absorbed or transmitted by a liquid sample in a microplate which typically consist of 96 wells, when the sample is exposed to light at a specific wavelength. The absorbance is an absolute measurement quantified in Optical Densities (ODs), the logarithmic ratio between intensity of light falling upon the material and the intensity of the light transmitted through the sample. Absorbance readers can be applied in various fields, such as academic life science research, drug discovery and screening, clinical laboratories, synthetic biology and food or water quality monitoring. 1 The Infinite F50 absorbance plate reader, together with Magellan™ reader control and data analysis software are ideal for absorbance-based ELISAs, kinetic and multi-label reading in the wavelength range of 400 to 750 nm. ELISA and protein quantification are the exemplified applications of Infinite F50 absorbance plate reader. 2,3 Combination of eight measurement channels with long-life LED lamps in Infinite F50 absorbance plate reader allows fast parallel reading and minimal maintenance costs. The easy-to-use Magellan data analysis software offers powerful and validated data analysis by supporting all major curve fittings, providing comprehensive QC functions and data import and export options as well as a range of kinetic data reduction features.

Ultraviolet and visible light (UV/Vis) spectroscopy is a technique based on the absorption of light by a sample. The sample is illuminated with electromagnetic rays of wavelengths in the visible and ultraviolet and part of the lower infrared region (near IR) of the spectrum. Depending on the substance, light is partially absorbed and the transmitted light is recorded as a function of wavelength by a detector, providing the UV/Vis spectrum of sample. Each substance absorbs light differently, and the amount of absorbed light is related to the amount of sample, thus a specific relationship exists between the substance and its UV/Vis spectrum, which can then be used to identify or quantify a substance. 1 Routine UV/Vis testing, liquids analysis as well as Pharmacopeia and regulatory tests are the applications of LAMBDA 25. The position and, to some extent, profile of the absorption peaks allow the identification of specific compounds. The position of the peaks in the spectrum reveals information about the molecular structure of the sample and the sample concentration can be calculated from the absorbance value of the peak. For example, organic compounds can be identified by their spectra, or solvent purity can be easily checked by UV/Vis spectroscopy. The true double-beam operation of LAMBDA 25 provides the best possible stability and allows references to be measured and corrected in real time. LAMBDA 25 also comes with powerful software, UV WinLab, which guide users through method development, analysis, reporting and analysis of results in a series of simple steps.

Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is the preferred method of infrared (IR) spectroscopy. An IR spectrum represents a fingerprint of a sample and since each different material is a unique combination of atoms, no exact same IR spectrum is produced by two compounds. This allows the identification (qualitative analysis) of every different type of material. Moreover, the size of the peaks in the spectrum directly indicates the amount of material present for quantitative analysis. 1 With the iD5 attenuated total reflection (ATR) accessory for Nicolet™ iS™ 5 Spectrometer, analysis of solids and liquids are possible. ATR is excellent for thick or strongly absorbing samples, homogeneous solid samples, surface layer of a multi-layered solid or the coating on a solid, laminates, paints, plastics, rubbers, coatings, natural powders and solids that can be ground into powder. It is also preferred for liquid analysis of free-flowing aqueous solutions, coatings, viscous liquids and biological materials as only one drop of liquid to be placed on the crystal. 2 FTIR is preferred as it is a rapid, economical, easy, and non-destructive technique. 3 It provides a precise measurement method which does not require external calibration. It can increase speed, collecting a scan every second, rather than minutes. 1 With the ATR, there is only minimal sample preparation as data can be collected after placing the sample on the crystal. The clean-up of the spectrometer is fast and easy. It also allows the analysis of samples in their natural states and there is no need to heat, press into pellets, or grind to collect spectra.