Environmentally Friendly Low-Field NMR Technology to Replace Solvent Extraction

Low-field NMR technology offers an environmentally preferable alternative to solvent extraction, a key technique in research and development laboratory work and quality control tests of oil or fat content of foods and seeds. Oxford Instruments Magnetic Resonance is offering businesses the opportunity to test their samples using this green technique at its facility in Concord, Massachusetts, USA and other sites around the world. Oxford Instruments’ range of benchtop NMR instruments provide extremely accurate measurements of oil content without solvents or hazardous chemicals, such as those used in the Soxhlet chemical extraction technique. The use of many of these solvents is rapidly becoming more problematic as companies and institutions face the need to comply with increasingly rigorous international environmental, health and safety standards. “Lowfield NMR is considered a green technique, with none of the safety and environmental issues associated with solvent use and disposal,” said Barry Jones, Oxford Instruments’ Director of Sales. “It is a very straightforward and simple technique that is fast and easy to use,” he added. Benchtop NMR instruments are generally considered to be environmentally friendly because they do not require the use of solvents, offer extremely low power consumption, and require no consumables.

Additionally, NMR is a time-efficient technology that can typically process samples in 45 seconds to a minute, compared to wet chemistry methods that can take from 6 hours to a day. Further, sample preparation is easy and measurements are nondestructive. It can be used on a range of sample volumes, from 14 millilitres (ml) up to 80ml.