Intelligent Sample Preparation System Maximising Safety and Minimising Use of Hazardous Materials in the Analytical Lab

The use of aggressive and dangerous acids is a common and potentially hazardous activity in almost all analytical laboratories and therefore the need to have sufficient health, safety and environmental precautions in place are essential. Lab Automation and Robotic sample handling can offer a perfect solution here.

Nucomat (Belgium) is proud to present the ‘HOTCELL Compact’; an embedded robotic sample preparation system into a completely closed fume extraction cabinet (necessary to minimise the amount of contact between dangerous materials and laboratory personnel).

With 25 years of experience in system integration, and strong roots in the nuclear sector, the functionality of this system offers a lot of benefits on very demanding working environments. Every sample is identified and monitored by the event driven ROBIN software. By a menu-driven interface, you can select and predefine all parameters for the sample preparation; sample identification and weighing, acid dispensing with 4 different acids, hotplate leaching and digestion, final dilution, make to volume, etc…

To ensure the precision and traceability, gravimetric control can be adapted in every preparation step. Analysers, spectrometers and/or electrodes can be integrated into the system, and will also be supervised by the ROBIN software as a real time task organiser (SCADA). The air/fume extraction will be monitored by laminar air flow sensors, and the acid container refills are controlled also. Any leakage or breakdown in the sequence will be announced by ROBIN, and the platform goes into a safety mode.