Improve productivity over traditional rotorvap concentrators

• No vacuum pump required - prevents risks of sample loss or contamination; eliminates oil mess and downtime from pump accessory
• Increased user safety – no fragile glassware with implosion risk
• No inconvenient water bath
• Blow-down of liquid fraction solvent means no pre-freezing for subsequent lyophilization
• Choice of inert recirculating blow-down gas; consumption of nitrogen or argon is negligible
• Centrifuge-like operation (samples in spinning rotor) assures no loss of sample, even at complete dryness
• Unattended operation - self-refilling of collection containers as evaporation progresses
• Portable, self-contained unit requires no bench space or fume hood
• Environmentally friendly - uses cold trap to recover evaporated solvent vapors

The Centrifan™ AF is a Recirculating Evaporation™ system with a unique Auto-Fill capability that allows unattended operation and provides significant advantages over traditional rotorvap concentrators. The system employs centrifuge-like operation and uses novel recirculating evaporation of a trapped gas volume to blow-down fraction solvent. The system functions without a vacuum to prevent sample foaming, bumping, freezing or contamination risks typically associated with vacuum type rotorvap concentrators. The Auto-Fill mechanism (patented pending) automatically determines when to replenish liquid in the evaporating sample containers while they continue to spin.

Unattended Operation
The Auto-Fill feature of the Centrifan AF determines the weight of the rotor indicating the amount of liquid remaining in the spinning containers and automatically triggers a pump to replenish the dried containers with more liquid to continue the evaporation process. This alternating refill/evaporation process continues until the original fraction reservoir is empty. A Centrifan AF-controlled peristaltic pump automatically manages the liquid additions to the Centrifan AF rotor with no risk of overflowing the containers and no user involvement. It does not need an operator to make periodic vacuum adjustments nor liquid additions to the rotorvap and therefore the evaporation process can operate unattended until complete.

Safe Sample Environment without a Vacuum Pump
Unlike a conventional rotorvap, the Centrifan AF requires no heated water bath and is vacuum-less. Because the recirculating evaporation technology requires no vacuum pump, all the sample handling hazards and inconveniences associated with vacuum concentration like bumping, foaming, cross contamination, and freezing are avoided. Further, the centrifugal force from the rotor assures retention in the containers despite the recirculating gas flow produced by the spinning rotor. Unlike conventional blow-down concentrators, there is no risk of blowing the dried samples out of their containers if the compounds are brought to complete dryness. The temperature of the recirculating gas may be controlled from ambient to 60°C.

Environmental Friendly
The Centrifan AF uses a cold trap to condense and accumulate evaporated solvent vapors in the recirculating gas. Recirculating a trapped inert gas volume allows recovery of over 80% of the evaporated solvent instead of allowing it to vent out a hood as in traditional blow-down concentrators. This novel recirculating evaporation technique also eliminates the consumption of large quantities of nitrogen gas or compressed air required by typical blown down instruments.

Specifications