Product Stability Testing with a new, advanced, Heating and Cooling Block for Laboratory Automation

Close up picture of the heating and cooling block showing the protective thermo-cover and ‘close-fit’ design of the heating blocks

Thermal stability is vital for the safe manufacture, storage and transportation of products to ensure physical integrity for chemical formulation, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products.

The purpose of stability testing of cosmetic products is to ensure that a new or modified product meets the intended physical, chemical and microbiological quality standards as well as functionality and aesthetics when stored under specified conditions.

The Applied Scientific Technologies automation team have recently designed, developed and manufactured a heating and cooling block specifically developed for laboratory automation applications and can fit onto almost any robotic system. The blocks heat and cool to within +/- 0.5°C within the temperature range of 0°C to 100°C, however these can be altered upon request.  Precise temperature stability ensures reproducibility of results and these temperatures can be reached typically within 15 minutes.

The lid is made from aluminium and is tightly closed using an integrated lid opening and closing mechanism. The lid of the heating and cooling block has independent temperature control to allow for opening and closing cycles and to avoid condensation, based on user setting and to reach set temperature settings quicker upon use. A protective, insulated cover prevents direct contact with the hot metal block for safe to use by Operators, making it especially suited to collaborative robots and applications.

Custom block modules provide flexibility for heating of different size tubes (numbers of vials / rack depends on the vial size – please enquire).  The temperature is controlled via a standard laboratory thermoregulation unit, the coolant of which can be changed to achieve a range of differing temperatures e.g. the Julabo PRESTO range.

Picture of heating and cooling block on the HyveTM lab automation platform

Multiple Heating & Cooling blocks were recently deployed on the HyveTM cobot platform for a client in stability testing or forced degradation of consumer products. HyveTM, a dedicated, autonomous, automation system employing a collaborative Techman robot at its heart has been designed to discover advancements in formulation chemistry and subsequent testing in laboratory environments. HyveTM has been purposed for the complete automation of lab processes around stability testing in the cosmetics and consumer goods R&D and production environment. HyveTM is unique in the turnkey, laboratory automation marketplace with its collaborative robot and extreme modularity offering a paradigm shift in flexibility for analytical lab process automation. The HyveTM can be used as a stand-alone system or can operate together in a Beehive-like architecture to form a production line or multiple testing set-up.

Its unique and patented modular concept allows it to be adapted and redeployed easily so as your requirements change and a new process is developed, the HyveTM can change with it!

The Hyve platform is especially suited to complex processes and is being applied to many hitherto unautomated processes in laboratory and cosmetics environments. Some examples of where HyveTM can be deployed include; cosmetics in-vitro SPF-factor testing, hair-care testing such as forced degradation studies, photostability, creaming and difficult sample preparation for HPLC and GC analytics.

https://www.appliedst.co.uk/hyve

For more information on the product range or our company, please call our Applied Scientific Technologies team today on 01642 717550, visit our website www.appliedst.co.uk   or alternatively email us at sales@appliedst.co.uk.

Applied Scientific Technologies (AST) is an emerging spin-out company founded in 2017 based in Stokesley, North Yorkshire. Founded by two directors from Applied Integration UK Ltd, a company celebrating its 15th working anniversary. AST are innovative specialists in robotics, automated control systems and hardware integration in the laboratory, chemical, pharmaceutical, physical and life science arenas supporting your laboratory digitalisation and automation journey.