Comment · Mon, January 13, 2020
Lab Update: Nederman Gas Extraction Arms
Original post in this thread
MisterYouAreSoDumb · 26 points
I figured I would start giving you guys some updates when new things go in our lab. It's pretty cool to see things going in and how they work.
These were installed in preparation for our new UPLC mass spec from Waters and new gas chromatograph from Thermo Scientific. Both the GC and MS use gas in their operation, which needs to be taken out of the room they are in. These arms take gas from the exhaust ports from those machines and feed them into our fume hood you see over on the other wall. You can see some gas tanks in the background on one of the pics. Those are nitrogen, helium, and hydrogen. The GC uses gas from those tanks for its operation. The UPLC-MS actually has its own nitrogen generator that feeds it, since it uses more volume than a tank can provide. That should be here soon. I believe the UPLC-MS is being delivered today. So install of that should be happening shortly. The GC should be here in about 10 days. It's always fun to have more toys to play with! These are just a little different than the stuff most people get around Christmas. LOL
What they were answering
somhok · 1 points
I havent been able to find a straight forward answer. So thought i would ask you guys directly. How pure are your racetams and theanine? 100% purity? I specifically plan to purchase oxiracetam, aniracetam, piracetam and l theanine.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
Sorry I missed your comment.
Nothing can be 100%. That doesn't exist in reality. Even ridiculously expensive methods to make the most pure thing possible are defined by how many 9s it is. For instance, the nitrogen we use in our gas chromatograph has to be triple 9s, or 99.9% pure. That's EXPENSIVE. The nitrogen in our UPLC-MS only needs to be 96.00%. So we have a nitrogen generator for that, which costs about $15,000. A nitrogen generator for the 99.9% pure stuff would be crazy expensive. So we have tanks brought in for that one for now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nines_(notation)
For our products, we hold them to pretty much pharma level standards. In fact, we sometimes hold them higher than pharma standards. When we analyze things, we do a bunch of orthogonal techniques. Purity numbers don't actually exist in the way most people think of them. When you see number like that, you are usually seeing assay number. An assay is a test that measures the concentration of something compared to a reference standard. We usually use HPLC and UPLC for our assays, but we also do other techniques too. Sometimes we use quant NMR or quant polarimeter. It just depends on the specific compound. Each chemistry technique is suited for different things. NMR can see hydrogens signals. FTIR can see carbon signals. HPLC/UPLC can see chromophores. Porarimter can see optical rotation. GC-FIDs can see ions that get created with a hydrogen flame. Mass specs can see fragmentation patterns. So you have to use multiple techniques to see the whole picture. What you are looking for is an assay compared to a known-good reference standard, and for the presence of any known impurities. If you just put something through an HPLC and get a peak purity number, that does NOT tell you what the purity of the compound is. It only tell you that the UV detector on the HPLC can't "see" anything else. That just means it doesn't have a chromophore, not that it isn't there. So you need to do much more sophisticated chemistry to get real information on how "pure" something really is. Remember, purity is more of a colloquial term used by consumers. We hold our products to insane levels of what you would consider purity. What that comes out to on an assay for a specific methodology depends on the product itself.