Genevac reports on special evaporative techniques for removal of solvents from oil and fat samples.
Working with oils and fats can be difficult. Whether extracting and recovering additives, evaluating lipid content of foods or characterising reclaimed cooking oils before reprocessing or conversion to biofuels, oils and fats can be difficult to dry.
Extraction and separation techniques - including Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE), Counter Current Chromatography and Dialysis - all normally present samples dissolved in an organic solvent. These samples must be dried or concentrated before
analysis. Removing all the solvent can be difficult without using very high temperatures or other harsh operating protocols which may lead to loss of more volatile fractions from the oil or fat sample.
Working with researchers involved with oil and fat applications, Genevac has developed methodologies based on their EZ-2 and the Rocket Evaporators that significantly enhance recovery and results. When working with larger solvent volumes, additional productivity benefits can be gained when the evaporators are used with SampleGenie technology, enabling large volumes to be concentrated or dried directly into a small vial.
Many oil and fat analyses require use of potentially explosive solvents, such as di-ethyl ether. These can be safely evaporated in Genevac evaporator systems fitted with the Inert Gas Purge option, which removes all the air from the system before use, replacing it with inert gas and thereby eliminating the risk of explosive incidents.
