• Extensive Rotor Library from Beckman Coulter Boosts Centrifugation Efficiency

Laboratory Products

Extensive Rotor Library from Beckman Coulter Boosts Centrifugation Efficiency

Feb 03 2016

High-performance, preparative centrifuges from Beckman Coulter Life Sciences offer a substantial rotor library to accelerate the turnaround time for sample preparation while ensuring sample integrity. Multiprotocol laboratories can access the company’s advanced centrifugation technology without purchasing a different centrifuge for a specialist application. See us at Pittcon - Booth 1739.

Several components in a centrifuge contribute to optimal efficiency, including relative centrifugal field (RCF), rotational speed, cell angle, and rotor volume. Beckman Coulter’s high performance Optima and Avanti centrifuges offer high capacities, high RCFs and exceptional versatility with interchangeable rotors for different applications. Ultracentrifuges deliver centrifugal forces of greater than 100,000 x g (and up to 1,000,000 x g). They offer precise temperature control and rapid attainment, delivering maximum separation purity in the shortest time possible.

Unique Online Rotor Calculator
As global specialists in rotor technology, Beckman Coulter offers a range of resources to maximise a lab’s investment in the right centrifuge. These include a unique online rotor calculator which scientists anywhere in the world can use to determine individual rotor parameters such as maximum rpm and run-time conversions.

Rotor Capabilities for Diverse Applications
Beckman Coulter Life Sciences provides a large variety of rotors to meet the needs of the most demanding research, including the expanding area of exosome characterisation and analysis. This process can be made more efficient with rotors offering high RCF (800,000 x g) to maximise the efficiency of separating nano-sized materials such as exosomes. 

With a large volume capacity ultracentrifuge, a lab can carry out its own deletion of fetal bovine serum (FBS) from exosome material, rather than incur the cost of buying FBS with contaminants removed, from external sources. The calculator will quickly check if the lab’s existing rotor supply has the capacity or will identify an alternative.

Total System Design for Optimum Safety
Beckman Coulter centrifuges are designed and tested as a complete system so that safety and performance can be maximised. This is vital with the speeds of 100,000 rpm and over 1,000,000 x g that modern rotors can generate. These rotors must comply with strict safety standards such as IEC 61010-2-020 for mechanical and electrical safety protection. To ensure that a rotor does not run above its rated speed, Beckman Coulter’s Dynamic Rotor Inertia Check (DRIC) is incorporated into all high performance centrifuges. This provides redundant safety checks in the system to ensure safe operation.

K-Factor to Determine Efficiency
In addition to the maximum speed of a rotor (in rpm or g force) to compare efficiency, other factors such as the geometry of the cell hole, and tube length, also contribute to rotor performance. When workflow efficiency and the need to accelerate sample preparation time is most important, scientists need to focus on rotors that can run labware that provides shorter path lengths for their sample to travel. When combined with high speeds, this increases run efficiency, enabling the scientist to spend less time preparing their samples. This efficiency is reflected in the k-factor, which accounts for other contributing factors such as maximum speed as well as maximum and minimum radius. As the k-factor decreases, rotor efficiency increases, so that a lower k-factor corresponds to a more efficient rotor.

Centrifugation is an essential separation and concentration process for laboratories involved in many different application areas. It should be considered a long-term investment which offers the flexibility to expand application capacity without incurring unnecessary cost. High-speed centrifuges with an extensive library of compatible rotors will help to accelerate the turnaround time for sample preparation while ensuring sample integrity.


Digital Edition

Lab Asia 31.2 April 2024

April 2024

In This Edition Chromatography Articles - Approaches to troubleshooting an SPE method for the analysis of oligonucleotides (pt i) - High-precision liquid flow processes demand full fluidic c...

View all digital editions

Events

Microbiology Society Annual Conference 2024

Apr 08 2024 Edinburgh 2024

analytica 2024

Apr 09 2024 Munich, Germany

ChemBio Finland 2024

Apr 10 2024 Helsinki, Finland

Analytica Anacon India & IndiaLabExpo

Apr 15 2024 Mumbai, India

Analitika Expo 2024

Apr 16 2024 Moscow, Russia

View all events