Feeling Sample Prep Burnout? Let Your GC Autosampler Help With Your Workload

Gas chromatographers know how much of their time performing analytical work is taken up preparing samples for the injection. Most of the GC analysis time often involves several manual handling procedures. Depending on the complexity of the sample matrix, isolation of the volatile organic fractions may require extraction, cleanup, derivatization and, in many cases, a concentration step to reach the required sensitivity. Manual operations not only steal time from more valuable activities like data interpretation, but are more likely to be error-prone and a major source of analytical data variability.

And let’s not forget about more complex sample preparation workflows as well as simple but time-consuming preparation of calibration standards.

So, why not let automated workflows perform most of the tasks for you?

Increasing the level of automation for samples and standards preparation is the way to relieve workload in the lab while ensuring — through robotic operation — error-free and highly precise results. It means:

• Saving labor and time through unattended 24/7 operation
• Saving money by scaling down sample and reagent volumes
• Increasing confidence in analytical results
• Reducing human exposure to hazardous chemicals
• Approaching green chemistry techniques with less waste by implementing more environmentally friendly procedures
• Increasing sample throughput with optimized overall cycle time

What if you could achieve those benefits by just evolving to automated workflows?

As I reported in a previous blog post, a number of laboratories working in the environmental and food safety analytical field are already experiencing the benefits of moving from a manual to a semi-automated or fully automated approach, with significant improvements in terms of productivity, data quality and costs reduction.

Most routine operations can be easily programmed on your Thermo Scientific TriPlus RSH SMART by means of the Thermo Scientific TriPlus RSH Sampling Workflow Editor software, a very intuitive graphical programming platform to instruct your robot to execute many sample handling operations.

A number of automated workflows are available ready-to-go from the Thermo Scientific Chromeleon Chromatography Data System (CDS). For more complex sample preparation procedures, Thermo Fisher Scientific is offering, with the valuable collaboration of SampleQ (part of Interscience), ad hoc validated workflow solutions based on the TriPlus RSH SMART robotic autosampler. To read more, browse the SampleQ solutions.

If you don’t know where to start, the available validated workflows for the TriPlus RSH and RSH SMART are collected in the Thermo Scientific “Guide to automated sample preparation for GC and GC-MS” .Click on the link to download it for free.

This compendium is a valuable guide describing the validated workflows available for environmental, food, pharma and metabolomic sample prep. You will find descriptions and schematics for each workflow, along with the required instrument configuration. Links to external resources like literature, web pages and examples of applications provide additional information.

New technology is opening opportunities you cannot miss.

Thermo Scientific automated sampling solutions, combined with advanced and highly sensitive GC and GC-MS instruments, are key to enabling modern laboratories to work more efficiently and match their productivity goal.

Discover the TriPlus RSH SMART robotic capabilities at www.thermofisher.com/automated-workflows.