Lab Facilities and Equipment

Overview

The School of Pharmacy has invested in a range of equipment to facilitate our teaching and research, as well as support other areas of research.  Our equipment is available for use in multiple applications including pharmaceutics, material processing and analytical services.

 

All of our facilities are based within the School of Pharmacy in the King George VI building.

Pharmaceutical Analysis

The school houses equipment suitable for testing the properties and quality of pharmaceutical formulations.

Overview:

An impactor specifically designed in line with Pharmacopoeias for inhaled and nasal products. Aerodynamic particle sizing is achieved by successively increasing the velocity of the air stream by forcing it through a series of nozzles containing progressively reducing jet diameters.

Material Processing

Our equipment can be used to process a wide variety of materials utilised in food sciences, nanotechnology, chemical engineering and other applications.

Overview:

Spray dries thermally sensitive materials and produces consistent particle size distribution.

Most common applications include spray drying and encapsulation of food and pharmaceuticals, but this is not limited. Our spray dryer is connected to an inert loop to allow drying of substances dissolved in organic solvents.

Specifications:

Frequency- 50/60 Hz

Evaporating capacity- 1.0 l/h H2O, higher for organic solvents

Airflow max. of 35 m3/h

Max. Temperature input - 220°C

Spray gas- Compressed air or nitrogen / 200 - 800 l/h; 5 - 8 bar

Possible particle diameter range - 1 - 25 μm

Mean residence time- 1.0 - 1.5 sec. 

 

Caleva MultiLab Granulator, Extruder and Spheroniser unit

Overview:

The Caleva Multi Lab (CML) has the capacity of demonstrating process efficiency by operating with batches between 10-100g, which is invaluable when working with rare and costly materials often used in product development trials. Suitable for products used in a wide range of industries, such as pharmaceutical, chemical engineering, catalysts and petrochemicals.

Specifications:

Batch Size 50 g

Inter-meshing counter rotating blades for the highest possible shear

Non inter-meshing “z” blade option for materials of higher viscosity

Processing Capacity 10 to 80 g wet weight

Speed Range 300 to 4,600 RPM

 

Labogene ScanVac Coolsafe Freeze Dryer

An instrument specifically designed for freeze drying, the CoolSafe is typically used to preserve a perishable material or make the material more convenient for transport. This technique can be used in pharmaceuticals and biotech to increase the shelf life of live virus vaccines, biologics and other injectables. It is also used in the food industry, chemical synthesis, ceramics and even in bacteriology to conserve special strains.

 

Netzsch Mastermix

This instrument is suitable for adhesives, sealants, synthetic lubricants, dental and casting compounds, powdery reagents, liquid silicone rubber and battery compounds.

 

Procept 4m8-Trix Formatrix Granulator

Overview:

A modular concept for research and design and clinical development. Procept’s product matrix allows customers to combine multiple processing units with a single central control system. This instrument conducts high shear granulation and palletisation.

 

ProCepT Fluid bed Dryer

Overview:

The ideal equipment for formulation research and design, demonstration and educational purposes. The fluid bed equipment is used for drying, encapsulation and granulation of powders, pellets or spheres.

Specifications:

Combination of plexi and glass for excellent process transparency

Easy connections for a fast change in set-up to air handling module and controls

Monitoring and control of all critical parameter

System in negative pressure for operator and product safety

Glass process vessels: 1 or 4 liters set-up

Easy (in process) filling, discharging and sampling in process

Water and organic solvents

Melt processing; waxes, polymers

Nitrogen recirculation for oxygen sensitive materials, environmental requirements or drying of high quantities organic solvents

Unit can be used for pre-clinical and clinical applications.

Analytical Services

The School provides a wide range of analytical equipment and software to examine processes and analyse sample compositions.

Agilent 1260 Infinity HPLC

Overview:

HPLC is commonly used in analytical chemistry for the analysis of pesticides, hydrocarbons and compound identification.  Other applications include quality control in pharmaceuticals and the food industry.  Agilent OpenLAB CDS software gives you the most comprehensive and fully traceable management of Infinity 1260 LC, including instrument control, result generation, data management and advanced reporting.  You can visualise data trends quickly and extensive built-in calculations provide results directly in data analysis, without the need to generate a full report and eliminating errors caused by data export or manual transcription.

 

Agilent 708-DS Dissolution Apparatus with Cary 60 UV-Vis Spectrophotometer

Overview:

This instrument provides critical in vitro drug release information for quality control and drug development to predict in vivo drug release profiles.  Our dissolution rig is connected to an Agilent UV-Vis Cary Series 60 spectrophotometer for excellent analytical services.  Other features include automated dosage delivery, user-friendly navigation and customisable options 

Specifications:

Speed Range 10-250 RPM

Speed Accuracy ±1% over 25 RPM, ±2% 10-25 RPM

Temperature Range: ambient 5 to 55°C Probe Accuracy: ±0.1°C

Manifold option available for automated sampling

 

Copley Next Generation Impactor

Overview:

An impactor specifically designed in line with Pharmacopoeias for inhaled and nasal products. Aerodynamic particle sizing is achieved by successively increasing the velocity of the air stream by forcing it through a series of nozzles containing progressively reducing jet diameters.

Specifications:

Operates between 15 and 100 L/min

7 stages (5 out of the 7 always between 0.54 and 6.12 microns)

Easy drug recovery with low interstage losses

High stage efficiency: all stages: 500 < Re < 3000

 

Dynamic Vapour Sorption Instrument

Overview:

The DVS is used worldwide to rapidly measure uptake and loss of moisture or organic vapours by flowing a carrier gas at a specified relative humidity over a sample suspended from the weighing mechanism of an ultra-sensitive recording microbalance.

Specifications:

Sample Pre-Heater Temperature Range - Up to 150°C

Humidity Range - 0-98%

Balance Specifications - Cahn D-200 (range 0.1µg – 3.5g)

 

Frontier FT-IR/ NIR Spectrometer

Overview:

Allows imaging of large sample areas rapidly at high spatial resolution, which allows FT-IR microscopy into new applications.  The Spotlight 400 System supports materials analysis, forensics, pharmaceuticals, biomaterials and biomedical research.

Specifications:

Detector Type: Mercury cadmium telluride  

Operating Range: 5 – 40 °C

Wave Length Range: 7,800 – 600 cm-1

 

HEL Crystalscan

Overview:

HEL's CrystalSCAN makes it easy for chemists to determine and optimise the solubility and recrystallisation temperature of multiple samples, in parallel.  It also allows to determine the effect of pH on the solubility of materials.

Specifications:

Reaction Vessel Volume: 75-500ml

Temperature Range: Minus 60° To 200°C

 

Magitrek NMR Spectrometer

Overview:

The Spinsolve 60 model is ideal for chemists in academia and industry where it can be used for reaction completion checks, identification, structure elucidation, quantification, purity measurements, online reaction monitoring and quality control (QA/QC).

Specifications:

Frequency – 60MHz

 

Malvern Kinexus Pro+ Rheometer

Overview:

The rotational rheometer system applies controlled shear deformation to a sample under test, to enable measurement of flow properties (such as shear viscosity from flow tests), and dynamic material properties (such viscoelastic modulus and phase angle from oscillation tests).

Specifications:

Torque resolution: 0.1nNm.

Position resolution: <10nrad.

Angular velocity range: 1nrads-1 to 500rads-1

Step change in strain: <10ms.

Frequency range: 6.28µrads-1 to 942rads-1 (1µHz to 150Hz).

Motor inertia: 12µN.m.s2.

Normal Force range: 0.001N to 50N

Normal Force resolution: 0.5mN.

Normal Force response time: <10ms.

Vertical lift speed: 0.1µms-1 to 35mms-1

Vertical lift range (measurable): 230mm.

Gap resolution (over full vertical lift range): 0.1µm

 

Malvern Mastersizer

Overview:

The Malvern Mastersizer 3000 uses laser diffraction for particle size analysis for both wet and dry samples.  Materials can be dispersed in either an aqueous or a solvent-based suspension.  Our instrument comes with the Hydro EV and Aero S wet and dry dispersion units for a range of sample volumes.   

Specifications:

Red light source: Max. 4mW He-Ne, 632.8nm

Blue light source: Max. 10mW LED, 470nm

Lens arrangement: Reverse Fourier (convergent beam)

Effective focal length: 300mm

Particle size: 0.01 - 3500 µm

 

Malvern Morphologi G3 Particle Analyser with Raman Spectrometer

Overview:

The Morphologi G3-ID is ideally suited to solving complex particle characterization problems where component-specific particle size and shape distributions are required.  This includes measurement of components within powder blends and suspensions, along with the identification of contaminant or suspicious particles within product formulations.

Specifications:

Particle size: 1 µm – 1000 µm*

Particle properties measured:  Size, shape, transparency, count, location, chemical identification

Particle size parameters: Circle equivalent (CE) diameter, length, width, perimeter, area, maximum distance, sphere equivalent (SE) volume, fiber total length, and fiber width

Particle shape parameters: Aspect ratio, circularity, convexity, elongation, high sensitivity (HS) circularity, solidity fiber elongation, fiber straightness

Particle transparency parameters: Intensity mean, intensity standard deviation

Dispersion pressure range: 0.5 bar – 5 bar

Dispersion pressure precision: 0.1 bar increments

Injection time range: 5 msec - 100 msec

Sample Settling time: 1 s - 600 s

Sample presentation options: 4-slide holder for standard microscope slides 

2-slide holder for large microscope slides 

25 mm and 47 mm dia. holders for membrane filters

Thin-path wet cell for low volume particle suspensions

Microscope

Light source: White light, brightfield diascopic and episcopic

Detector: 5M pixel 2592 x 1944 color CCD array

Pixel width: 2.78 µm x 2.78 µm

Optical system: Nikon CFI 60 brightfield/darkfield system

Lens: 2.5x, 5x, 10x, 20x, 50x

Particle size:
2.5x: 100 µm – 1000 µm (nominal)
5x: 25 µm – 420 µm (nominal)
10x: 20 µm – 210 µm (nominal)
20x: 20 µm – 100 µm (nominal)
50x: 1 µm – 40 µm (nominal)

Spectrometer

Chemical analysis: Raman spectroscopy

Spectral performance: 150 cm-1 to 1850 cm-1, 6 cm-1 resolution

Wavelength: 785 nm

Power: <500 mW (spectrometer)

Power: > 10 mW nominal (at sample)

Laser spot size: 3 µm at 50x magnification

Laser safety: Class 3B

Chemical identification method: Spectral correlation

 

Malvern Zetasizer Nano

Overview:

The Zetasizer Nano ZS measures various material properties including size, electrophoretic mobility, zeta potential and molecular weight.

Specifications:

Particle size and molecular size

Measurement range: 0.3nm – 10.0 microns* (diameter).

Measurement principle: Dynamic Light Scattering

Minimum sample volume: 12µL

Accuracy: Better than +/-2% on NIST traceable latex standards

Precision / Repeatability: Better than +/-2% on NIST traceable latex standards

Sensitivity: 0.1mg/mL (Lysozyme)

Zeta potential (and optional Protein Mobility)

Measurement range: 3.8nm – 100 microns (diameter)*

Measurement principle: Electrophoretic Light Scattering

Minimum sample volume: 150µL (20µL using diffusion barrier method)

Accuracy: 0.12µm.cm/V.s for aqueous systems using NIST SRM1980 standard reference material

Sensitivity: 10mg/mL (BSA).

Molecular weight

Measurement range: 980Da – 20M Da*

Measurement principle: Static Light Scattering using Debye plot

Minimum sample volume: 12µL (3-5 sample concentrations required)

Accuracy: +/- 10% typical

Microrheology (option)

Measurement principle: Dynamic Light Scattering

Minimum sample volume: 12µL (DLS measurement only) *maximum range, sample dependent

 

TA Instruments DMA Q800

Overview:

Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA), measures the mechanical properties of materials as a function of time, temperature, and frequency.  DMA provides an accurate measure of material stiffness (modulus), but also other important mechanical properties such as damping, creep, and stress relaxation.

Specifications:

Maximum Force 18 N

Minimum Force 0.0001 N

Force Resolution 0.00001 N

Strain Resolution 1 nanometer

Modulus Range 103 to 3×1012 PA

Modulus Precision ±1%

TanA Sensitivity 0.0001

TanA Resolution 0.00001

Frequency Range 0.01 to 200 Hz

Dynamic Sample Deformation Range ±0.5 to 10,000 pm

Temperature Range -150 to 600 °C

Heating Rate 0.1 to 20 ‘C/min

Cooling Rate 0.1 to 10 °C/min

Isothermal Stability ±0.1 °C

Time/Temperature Superposition Yes

 

TA Instruments DSC Q2000

Overview:

Properties measured by TA Instruments’ Differential Scanning Calorimetry techniques include glass transitions, “cold” crystallization, phase changes, melting, crystallization, product stability, cure / cure kinetics, and oxidative stability.

Specifications:

Temperature Range Ambient to 725°C

With Cooling Accessories -180 to 725°C

Temperature Accuracy +/- 0.1°C

Temperature Precision +/- 0.01°C

Calorimetric Reproducibility (indium metal) +/- 0.05%

Calorimetric Precision (indium metal) +/- 0.05%

Dynamic Measurement Range >+/- 500 mW

Baseline Curvature (Tzero; -50 to 300˚C)      10 μW

Baseline Reproducibility with Tzero +/- 10 μW

Sensitivity 0.2 μW

Indium Height/Width 60 mW/°C

 

 

TA Instruments TGA Q500

Overview:

For sensitive, precise automation of thermogravimetric analysis.

Specifications:

Maximum Sample Weight 1 g

Weighing Precision +/- 0.01%

Sensitivity 0.1 μg

Baseline Dynamic Drift < 50 μg

Furnace Heating Resistance Wound

Temperature Range Ambient to1000 °C

Isothermal Temp Accuracy +/- 1 °C

Controlled Heating Rate (°C/min) 0.01 to 100

Furnace Cooling (forced air / N2) 1000 to 50 °C < 12 min