Evaporating solvents using nitrogen is taking so long, even with a small volume, is there any alternative way or tips to decrease the evaporation time? Its a step in studying the bioavailability of a drug. This is step can take up to 15-30 minutes in one small tube.
We are thinking of putting the tubes in a glass beaker filled with hot water and place it over Hotplate during the evaporation.
Dear Ahmed Eid Radwan,
You may use hair dryer to speed up the solvent evaporation. You can choose between hot or cold air. If your compounds are labile to heat, use the hair dryer with the cold mode, if not you can switch to the hot mode.
Hoping this will be helpful,
Rafik
Dear Rafik,
Thanks for your answer.
I don't think we can use hair dryer in the lab. Also, the tube volume is too small and will lose sample if we point a "hair dryer". The idea of "We are thinking of putting the tubes in a glass beaker filled with hot water and place it over Hotplate during the evaporation." worked very well. Managed to decrease the time from 15-30mins to 3-5mins only. Didn't affect the quality of the sample when we examine the characters. Anyway, thank you for your help, it's really thinking out of the box to me.
Best Regards,
Ahmed.
The answer to your problem is a rotovap. It works on the principal of distilation/condensation under reduced pressure. It's a standard piece of equipment in any organic laboratory and well worth the investment. Buchi makes one.
Thank you so much for this answer. Actually we are using it, but in the large volumes not the small ones. We can't use it when dealing with tiny amounts.
What volumes?
There are heated centrifuge vacuums as well. They'll take a 1.5 mL eppendorf.
Dear Ahmed,
I am happy that you have solved your problem. From your question it was obvious that you are talking about very small volumes.
Regarding the hair dryer, it sounds as a strange idea, but this is a very effective tool to utilize when using it appropriately. You are not going to operate the hair dryer on the opining of the tube. The air of the hair dryer should be in contact with the outer walls of the glass tube. No material is going to be lost.
I am really curious to know why a hair dryer can not be used in your lab. Is it a safety rule?
Rafik
I think mainly because we are using the Rotovap (Rotary Evaporator) for the large volumes, we didn't need to use the hair dryer yet. Also, I just was thinking that we can't, but didn't say for sure. I don't think there will be any safety issues if we needed to use it anytime, but I didn't propose this idea to the lab team to see what does they think, as we didn't encounter it yet.
Thank you for your valuable help and idea!
New updates, just to follow up on this question. We managed to reduce the time to 1min for 1mL by not adding the PBS during the preparation.
Hello
you can help me with the evaporing nitrogen protocole?
I don´t have any =(
thank you
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