Refractometers are analytical instruments that measure the refractive index (RI) of liquids. Physicists define RI as the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum divided by its speed through a test medium.

Microplate handlers are specialized robotic devices that transfer microtiter plates in three-dimensional space from one location within a workflow to another. The “locations” are actually operations such as solvent addition (through liquid handling), aspiration, heating, shaking, incubation, washing, reading, and storage.

The news in analytical balances comes not from hardware but from user interface and software algorithms that translate electrical signals to weight. 

Laboratory stirring and mixing are carried out by either magnetic stirrers (including hot-plate models), table-type agitators and shakers, shaker-incubators, or overhead stirrers. All have their niches.

Thermal analysis, or calorimetry, correlates temperature-dependent events to physical characteristics of a sample, such as mass, structure, strength, brittleness, elongation, decomposition, evolved gases, oxidation, reduction, or physicochemical structure.

Lab refrigerators and freezers must be versatile enough to serve diverse markets because a great deal of feature overlap exists within the lab refrigeration market. Yet significant differentiation exists as well.

Those whose only brush with titration came in a freshman chemistry lab may be surprised to learn the significance of titration in companies that manufacture materials, drugs, foods, and beverages.

Streamlining workflows while improving accessibility

“Shaken, not stirred” was James Bond’s preferred mixing method for martinis. Similarly, biological shakers aerate and mix cells with their media by the action of a moving platform.

Mature product lines such as pH meters are fundamentally limited in underlying technology, so they evolve through adding features and functionality. High-end pH meters often come with USB or Bluetooth communications and networking capability.

Early in the evolution of chromatography- mass spectrometry, one could consider the two components as separate boxes requiring a good deal of engineering to link them together.

Raman spectroscopy has undergone a revolution during the last seven to 10 years, largely as a result of massive investment in the telecommunications industry.