Sample Oxidizers
Manual and Automatic Sample
Preparation for Liquid Scintillation
Counting
System 387 Sample Oxidizer
PerkinElmer’s System 387 – As Easy as ABC!
For many years the PerkinElmer Model 307 Sample Oxidizer has been the gold standard for the preparation of many biological sample types, such as animal and plant tissue and fluids, and for subse-quent measurement by liquid scintillation counting.
For high throughput application situations, the Oximate 80 Robot converts the Model 307 Oxidizer into a fully automatic sample preparation station, known as the System 387, for preparing as many as 80 samples completely unattended. The two arm robotic system transports the sample-filled Combusto-Cone™to the ignition basket and positions the LSC
vials to collect the 14CO
2and 3H2O combustion products.
Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Now there is a way to eliminate the tedious work, the counting errors and the exposure to solvent fumes from your LSC sample preparation methods.
PerkinElmer’s System 387 combines the Sample Oxidizer 307 with the OxiMate 80 robotic system to automatically prepare single and dual label 3H and 14C samples for liquid
scintilla-tion counting.
Researchers around the world have been impressed with the performance of the System 387 and have commented:
“The System 387 is reliable, dependable and has performed exceptionally well.”
“The System 387 sample oxidizer provides a powerful tool to process a diverse array of samples to a high degree of precision and accuracy.”
“The System 387 has proven to be an excellent piece of equipment and has saved considerable time and man-power for our department in just a few short months.”
If your work requires repetitive processing of multiple samples by sample oxidation, the System 387 is the solution you are looking for. It’s as easy as ABC!!!
Load 80 samples & LSC vials into the System 387 Press the start button and WALK AWAY!
When you return, you’ll find all your samples in vials, capped and ready for counting in your LSC.
What’s more, the System 387 prepares your samples by flame combustion, the absolute best method for LSC sample preparation:
• No color quenching • No chemiluminescence • No variable dual label ratios • No chemical quench variations • No sample self-absorption effects
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B
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OxiMate 80 Plus Oxidizer 307
Equals System 387
• 80 sample capacity
• 240 samples per day* throughput • Sensor controlled safety
• Limited exposure to hazardous materials • Pays for itself in less than two years • Upgrade Oxidizer 307 to a System 387 • Caps and uncaps vials
• Automated Combustaid addition
• Multiple combustions collected in the same vial
• Samples up to 1.5 grams • Eliminates counting errors
• Combusts dual label samples, collects single label 3H/14C
• Wet, dry or freeze-dried samples • Eliminates solubilization • No catalyst required • Automatically adds cocktail
• High temperature flame combustion (up to 1300°C) • Unique splash-free filling system
• OxiMate 80 will indicate when maintenance is required
*Based on an eight-hour work day.
Exclusive Features and Benefits of the System 387
OxiMate 80 Plus… Oxidizer 307
Automate Your LSC Sample Preparation
Why Automate?
Expand Experimental Capabilities
• Processes sample weights up to 1.5 grams.* • Works with a wide variety of sample materials. • Separates 3H and 14C for dual label sample
materials.
• Capable of combusting up to 15 grams of 3H
labeled material and collecting into one counting vial.*
*Depending upon sample type.
Reduce Labor and Avoid Hazardous Work
• Automates tedious sample preparation procedures.
• Processes up to 80 samples in one run; up to 240 samples per day.
• Hands-off system reduces exposure to hazardous materials.
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Cut Costs and Eliminate Solubilization
• Pays for itself in less than two years.
• Reduces costs of specimens and consumables. • Eliminates costly and error-prone solubilization
procedures.
Eliminate Counting and Preparation Errors
• Reduces the element of human error. • Eliminates errors caused by colored samples,
sample self-adsorption, chemiluminescence, varying quench levels, and isotope spillover.
The Oxidizer 307 Expands
Experimental Capabilities
From specimen to ready-to-count samples in vials,the System 387 has been designed to enhance your experimental results and to expand your experimental horizons.
Larger Sample Size Improves Accuracy
Sample sizes up to 1.5 grams can be processed with the System 387. This ten-fold increase over conventional sam-ple preparation methods, such as solubilization, increases the total sample activity per vial. The result is increased counting accuracy, shorter counting times, and less radioactive material to store.
Wider Variety of Specimens Extends Experimental
Capabilities
The System 387’s flame combustion technology allows you to process a variety of samples that extend far beyond the capabilities of any other liquid scintillation sample preparation technique. Wet, dry or freeze-dried samples of whole organs, soil, plant tissue, liver, spleen, skin, plasma, bone, egg shell, muscle, feces, kidney, brain, bladder, hair, whole blood, water, insects, lung, adipose, heart, fat, intestines, urine, bacteria, gels, plastics, filters, membrane, glands, crude oil, toluene, thin layer scrapes...
...the list is endless. The System 387 clearly demonstrates that flame combustion can be an easy, reliable and universal sample preparation technique.
Higher Dual Label Activity Ratios Let You Perform
Two Experiments on One Sample
With the System 387, there are no limitations to the activity ratio of 3H and 14C in dual label experiments. Minute
quantities of one label can now be obtained in the pres-ence of high concentrations of the second label. The System 387 physically separates both isotopes, thus allowing you to perform dual label metabolic and tracer studies with higher accuracy — i.e., you can do two experiments with one specimen!
Low Level Tritium Counting of Solid Samples
You can collect tritium activity for 10-15 grams of solid material in a single vial for environmental control, health physics studies and other low level tritium measurements. This increases the detection sensitivity for tritium in these materials by a factor of 10-100.Typical LS counting of dual label 3H/14C samples results in
large 3H errors when samples
are counted with excess 14C
activity. Oxidation eliminates these because it physically separates 3H from 14C.
The OxiMate 80 Reduces Labor and
Avoids Hazardous Work
The System 387 is the first commercial, stand-alone, hands-off sample preparation system for liquid scintillation counting. It features electronic sensor controls to allow complete walk-away operation.
Reduces Labor By Automating Tedious
Sample Preparation Procedures
Are you tired of uncapping and recapping vials; manually dispensing cocktails; mixing; adding solubilizers, bleach-ing agents and acidifiers; incubatbleach-ing at elevated tempera-tures; and dark adaptation? All of these laborious, tedious and often hazardous procedures can be eliminated with the System 387.
Just load samples and capped vials, and press the start button. Up to 80 samples can be prepared in one run, totally unattended, and are ready for counting after two to three hours.
Simultaneous counting and automatic sample preparation with the System 387 allows you to process up to 240 samples per day*, with minimal user intervention, reducing labor up to 80%!
Avoid Hazardous Work and Clean-Up
Your Laboratory
The System 387 is a hands-off, stand-alone, and compact system. Samples are processed automatically and unattended.
Limit the amount of radiolabeled materials. Lessen the exposure to fumes, mess and the hazards of solvents, solubilizers and other toxic reagents.
Self-Monitoring Insures Error-Free Sample
Handling
The System 387 monitors several procedural steps and will stop automatic processing when errors are detected. Sensors will stop operation if oxidation is not detected. Processing will be concluded if fluid delivery, sample movement, vial movement, and oxidation pressures are detected as abnormal.
System 387 Cuts Costs and Eliminates
Complicated Sample Preparation
Considering the time saved by the System 387, it can pay for itself in less than two years.
Cuts Costs of Labor and Consumables
The System 387 enhances productivity by allowing more experiments to be run at existing staff levels. It functions overnight without supervision, and it doesn’t require any special skills.
Another key benefit is that the System 387 allows increased sample sizes. The larger sample size can reduce the number of vials per experiment and reduce the radioisotope tracer material required. The System 387 eliminates the use of solubilizers, bleaching agents and chemiluminescence inhibitors. By physically separating 3H and 14C labeled
material, the System 387 allows two experiments to be per-formed on a single specimen, reducing specimen costs!
The Solubilizer Case Study
The preparation of biological samples labeled with tritium presents a difficult challenge to investigators using liquid scintillation. While adding the sample to the cocktail may be adequate for simple aqueous samples with neutral pH, direct sampling is not recommended for biological samples. Biological samples such as plant or animal tissues, TLC scrappings, filter papers, protein precipitates, DNA/RNA blots and electrophoresis gels must be completely dissolved in the scintillation cocktail to prevent 3H self-adsorption.
Depending on the material, there are various ways of dissolving the sample. The most common methodology is solubilization which requires incubation to reduce the processing time. The solubilization process often produces large errors in counting data. The counting errors can be attributed to self-adsorption and/or chemiluminescence.
Automatic flame combustion with the System 387 provides a known technique that improves the sample preparation efficiency and the quality of experimental results. Samples are ready for counting in minutes instead of hours, and over 200 samples can be processed daily versus the 80 samples that typically can be processed through manual solubilization methods.
AUTOMATED OXIDATION
SOLUBILIZATION
Automated oxidation reduces costs of labor and consumables, and eliminates interference from color quenching and chemiluminescence. SAMPLE COMBUSTO CONE AUTOMATIC COMBUSTION 3H 14C SAMPLE COUTING VIAL SOLUBILIZE (30 min. - 18 hours) BLEACHING? (color quenching) NEUTRALIZE pH? (chemiluminescence)
Eliminates Counting and Preparation
Errors
People make mistakes - that’s human nature. Many sample preparation methods may introduce interfer-ences. The System 387 is the only automated sample preparation system that can reduce counting errors and human mistakes. Its automation technology performs the sample preparation tasks identically, without procedural mistakes. The oxidation technology prepares samples — large or small, wet or dry — without introducing counting interferences.
Automation Reduces Preparation Errors
Test results are only as accurate as the samples that are prepared. Manual sample preparation is prone to errors. Different samples require different procedures. A step may be skipped, a reagent may be delivered incorrectly, the wrong cocktail may be used.The System 387 reduces procedural mistakes. Sample com-bustion uses a field proven sample preparation methodology.
Flame oxidized samples allow the same liquid scintillation counting conditions for a variety of sample types. The only variable is the counting time. Automation allows tasks to be performed without procedural mistakes. The System 387 eliminates sample preparation errors.
Oxidation Reduces Counting Errors
Many errors, often unsuspected, have plagued LSC users for over 30 years. Colored samples, self-adsorption, chemilumi-nescence, varying quench levels, and isotope spillover are all well-known problems resulting from conventional sample preparation procedures.
The flame oxidation principle yields samples that are uni-form. The products of combustion are in the form of water and/or carbon dioxide. The oxidation of the organic sub-stance in the sample eliminates color quenching, chemilumi-nescence and self-adsorption. Oxidation is the only technique that, prior to counting, physically separates 3H from 14C
elimi-nating many errors associated with the counting of dual labeled samples.
System 387 delivers capped, ready-to-count vials. All procedural samples preparation mistakes are eliminated by total automation.
OxiMate 80 Automation to Increase
Productivity
OxiMate 80 Is Easy to Use
PerkinElmer designed the System 387 to simplify sample preparation. Just load your samples and vials, press a button and walk away. Return later to collect your capped, ready-to-count vials.
• Nitrogen and oxygen pressure • The back pressure during combustion
The System 387 Automatically Monitors:
Oxidizer 307 Flame Combustion to
Improve Results
The insolubility, or quenching, of many samples in liquid scintillation systems has stimulated the search for better techniques for sample preparation. The flame oxidation of labeled organic materials producing 3H
2O and 14CO2provides solutions to many sample preparation problems.
Automatic Flame Combustion
For over 25 years, PerkinElmer’s flame oxidation technology has been used to accurately combust 3H and 14C labeled
samples which, otherwise, would be very difficult to assay. The principle drawback of the oxidation technique was the lack of automation. The PerkinElmer Oxidizers, prior to System 387, manually processed one sample at a time. With the System 387, the entire procedure can now be automated to process up to 80 samples per run automatically, without supervision.
Automating the flame combustion technique allows the investigator to exploit superior sample preparation by oxidation for a wide variety of samples.
Proven Oxidation Technology...30 Years Experience
The flame combustion technology has proven to be a simple and reliable means of sample preparation. The combustion section, the trapping section, and the collection section are integral parts of the combustion device.The products of combustion are trapped at ambient temperature, minimizing cross contamination. Only simple maintenance and cleaning procedures are needed. Up to 500 samples can be processed without refilling reagent containers. Non-catalytic flame combustion makes the Oxidizer 307 the best performing sample preparation system ever. Automation makes the System 387 the most efficient.
The non-catalytic combustion of organic samples by flame oxidation to 3H
Flame Oxidation: The Preferred Way to
Prepare Your Samples for LSC
The non-catalytic combustion technology eliminates the use of a catalyst. A great variety of sample material can be processed in the PerkinElmer Sample Oxidizers. Examples of these materials are liver, kidney, heart, skin, plasma, urine, whole blood, bone, hair, fat, gels, whole insects, plants, soil, thin layer scrappings, and small amounts of aromatic solvents.
“Open-Closed” Flame Combustion Technology
The combustion section, the trapping section, and the collec-tion seccollec-tion are all an integral part of each other and are “open” to the atmosphere, so combustion takes place in an “open” system. This will prevent excessive build-up of pressure during combustion. The system is “closed” to the products of interest: the tritiated water vapor (3H2O) and/or
the radioactive carbon dioxide (14CO 2).
Simple, Fast and Hands-off Operation
Once the program has started, the system initiates a highly reproducible cycle, which includes automatic:
• Oxygen injection • Sample ignition • Vial positioning • Dispensing of reagents • Steam and water cleaning
Fast, Precise and Reliable Results
Isotopes in dual label mode are physically separated. There is no spectrum overlap and counting times are reduced drastically. Up to 60 samples can be processed per hour for each isotope.
Results You Can Count On
With flame oxidation of sample material, there is: • No self-absorption
• No color quench
Flame oxidation with PerkinElmer’s Model 307 provides the following benefits.
• Complete combustion of the sample material eliminating the need for time consuming, chemical solubilization. • The recovery of the radionuclide for both 3H and 14C
is >97% with close to zero cross contamination. • No self-absorption; no optical or color quench; no
chemical quench due to solubilizers, bleaching agents, etc. • Low initial start-up temperature to avoid loss of the
sample due to evaporation.
• No need for a recovery correction factor, such as is necessary for a catalytic combustion device.
The Model 307 Oxidizer can accommodate sample material in liquid, wet, dried, or freeze-dried form with a sample weight up to 1.5 grams (up to 40 millimoles of CO2and up to
85 millimoles of H2O). The products of the combustion are
trapped at ambient temperature and thus, minimize cross contamination and reduce mechanical wear.
The Model 307 uses standard 20 mL glass or polyethylene vials. It can process up to 500 samples without refilling reagent reservoirs. And, maintenance and cleaning of the Model 307 are simple.
The Flame Oxidation Advantage
Operating Controls
“Program Start” initiates automatic loading of sample, ignition of sample, programmed oxygen flow injection, dispensing of reagents, cleaning of total system, and pneumatic positioning of counting vials and ignition basket.
Distilled Water Reservoir
The reservoir has a five liter capacity. It is used for the steam injection and cleaning cycle to achieve low memory and high recovery, and to constrain back pressure.
Combustion Flask Enclosure
This was designed for easy and rapid maintenance, and has a built-in steam generator and temperature controlled heater for low memory and high recovery.
Quick Remove Ignition Basket
A specially designed, durable platinum/rhodium basket for high recovery (and isotope separation) for dual labeled samples. It accommodates a wide variety of biological sample materials, independent of size or shape.
Trapping and Collection Section
Isotope separation and trapping occur in this section at ambient temperature (there are no moving parts).
Vial Carriage
Fits all standard counting vials (glass and/or plastic) with neck openings of 22-24 mm. Automatic positioning provides convenient and rapid loading and unloading of counting vials.
Timer
Adjustable combustion time (zero to five minutes) allows maximization of the number of samples processed in a given time.
Reagent Storage Tanks
Each has a five liter capacity with built-in, automatic dis-penser and multiple dial settings from 0-18 mL. The tanks allow the user to optimize the amount of fluid dispensed.
Pressure Regulators
Factory set, built-in regulators with in-line filters improve reliability. They are mounted in a convenient location for easy and fast checking of pressure.
Override Button
By pushing this button, the user can override the remaining combustion time. This allows maximum sample throughput.
Reset Button
Allows the user to reset the timer so that the sample can be completely combusted without restarting the system before preset time runs out.
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PerkinElmer — The Only Complete
LSC Systems Supplier
PerkinElmer offers solutions to the most demanding problems in environmental, toxicological, and metabolic studies: • Sample preparation chemicals and consumables • Automatic sample preparation robotics
• Liquid scintillation counters, flow scintillation analyzers, and direct imaging quantifiers
• Worldwide applications support
The times have changed. Maybe your sample
analysis should, too. Call on PerkinElmer —
you can expect more from us.
Americas: PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences, 710 Bridgeport Avenue, Shelton, CT 06484-4794 USA (800) 762-4000
Europe: PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences, Imperiastraat 8, B-1930 Zaventem Belgium
Technical Support:in Europe: [email protected] in US and Rest of World: [email protected]
Belgium:Tel: 0800 94 540 •France:Tel: 0800 90 77 62 •Netherlands:Tel: 0800 02 23 042 •Germany:Tel: 0800 1 81 00 32 •United Kingdom:Tel: 0800 89 60 46