Latest App Notes & Case Studies

Wax content is an important characteristic affecting the physical properties of petroleum crude oils, in particular their viscosity. Thus, measuring wax content has become a routine analytical requirement for product quality control. The precise monitoring of the wax content in oils helps to predict and avoid wax blockage so that equipment can be maintained for high quality standards during oil processing.

The hydrogen content of aviation fuel is an important parameter as it determines the combustion properties of the fuel. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance offers the opportunity to monitor the hydrogen content of fuels rapidly, non-destructively and with minimal sample preparation.

Accurate determination of live, dead, and total bacteria is important in many microbiology applications. Traditionally, viability in bacteria is synonymous with the ability to form colonies on solid growth medium and to proliferate in liquid nutrient broths. These traditional, culture-based tests are time-consuming and can work poorly with slow-growing or viable, but non-culturable organisms.

Gas Chromatography (GC) is a highly sensitive chemical analysis technique with a broad range of applications. Existing commercial GC systems are generally quite bulky and fragile. Microfluidics enables miniaturisation of the gas chromatography column and low power methods for column heating.

The formation of droplets of oil-in-water or water-in-oil has a range of uses in science and industry. Monodispersity, or size consistency, is the key to making droplet microfluidics a powerful tool for conducting accurate and repeatable experiments.

Simulated Distillation (SimDis) is a Gas Chromatographic technique for determining the boiling point distribution of petroleum products by Flame Ionization Detection. This information assists refinery engineers in determining the most efficient process for the distillation of crude oil and allows for active monitoring of the refining process.

The recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico created concerns over the safety of seafood that can get potentially contaminated with Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) from crude oil. The US Environmental Protection Agency identifies PAHs as critical pollutants harmful to human health. Some of these compounds are known carcinogens.

Cyanide is a well known acute toxin that prevents cellular respiration by irreversibly binding with the iron in cytochrome C oxidase. In addition, thiocyanate, which is metabolized from cyanide, interferes with iodine uptake by the thyroid gland, causing goiters and other long-term iodine deficiency diseases.

Compositional data of peptides and proteins can be determined using an amino acid analyser. If the identity of a protein is unknown, the compositional data of the protein can be used in searching protein databases.

Amino acids play an essential role in the nutritional composition of feedstuffs, however for many years diets were formulated to meet the requirements of crude protein rather than specific amino acids.