Quantos combines Mettler Toledo’s weighing competence with special powder and liquid dosing technology. Up to now, when preparing a solution, the amount of substance to be dosed was determined by the required concentration and the available volumetric glassware.
Quantos instead weighs the amount of substance, which can be only a few milligrams, and automatically adds solvent to accomplish the correct concentration.
‘Instead of the glassware, the user decides on the amount of substance and may thus realise significant savings,’ says Mettler Toledo. Substance and solvent can be dispensed directly into the target vial instead of a volumetric flask, simplifying the solution preparation process. Automation makes the process error-resistant, reducing out-of-specification results, the company says.
In analytical laboratories, preparing samples and standards, for example, for high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis is a time consuming, repetitive and error prone task. When preparing solutions for HPLC, the amount of substance is defined by the glassware and target concentration. The tolerance on the concentration defines exactly how that amount must be dosed. For example, preparing a concentration of 1:1000 to within +/–10% requires dosing between 90 and 110mg into a 100ml volumetric flask. This can be a challenge especially when the substance is a paste or cream that is hard to dose.
Advancements in preparing solutions make it possible to realise significant cost savings as the required amount of solution for modern analytical methods is very low. For example, typical HPLC instruments need 10–20µl of solution per injection. More than 99% of prepared solutions are typically disposed of without being used.
When using Quantos, the amount of substance is no longer determined by volumetric flasks but by the minimum weight of the balance. Therefore, in the example, savings of more than 90% of substance and solvent can be achieved. Substance and solvent can now be dispensed directly into the target vessel with speed and accuracy, eliminating the associated expense of glassware management and wasted stock.
