Batch adsorption robot or High-throughput liquid handling robot
Brand/Model: Tecan Freedom Evo
Description/use:
Since batch adsorption experiments consist mainly of simple liquid handling operations, they can easily be automated using a general-purpose liquid handling robot. A dedicated setup was designed for batch adsorption experiments based on the Tecan Freedom Evo liquid handler. This device is equipped with a thermostatic shaker, a precision balance and a set of racks accommodating 20 ml vials and 1.5 ml sample vials. Furthermore, the robot possesses a robotic arm capable of transporting 20 ml vials as well as a liquid handling arm mounted with eight syringe tips capable of aspirating and dispensing liquids from and to any vial on the robot’s bench.
A total 196 samples can be prepared by mixing of different liquids. Half of this number of samples (98) can be thermostated between 0°C and 70°C (higher temperatures are avoided to limit evaporation: at low temperature to limit evaporation of volatile components after septum piercing of the sealed vials or at high temperature to determine the effect of temperature on the adsorption equilibrium). An identical amount of samples can be taken for offline analysis in 1.5 ml or 300µl vials.
The batch adsorption high throughput device is operated through the Evoware application, a special purpose high-level scripting language, supplemented with a custom made interface Emoware.
Technical specifications:
Tecan Freedom Evo workbench is equipped with:
- IKA shaker (max 300 rpm)
- Sartorius precision balance (0.1mg)
- 4×49 20ml vial racks
- 2×98 1.5ml/300µl vial racks
- 1×49 20ml thermostated vial blocks
- 1 20ml vial gripping device
- 1 rack with 6 fixed 20 ml vials
- 1 10ml/20ml vial handling robot arm
- 1 liquid handling robot arm with 8 channels connected: 8 syringe tips, connected to 6 syringes (5/1/1/1/1/1 or 5 ml) capable of transferring liquid between vials and aspiration from external vessels
Experiment examples:
Liquid phase batch adsorption experiments of binary mixtures: alkanes, alkenes, aromatics, alcohols…