Rapid reaction equipment

Applied Photophysics SX20 Stopped-flow spectrometer

The Applied Photophysics SX20 stopped-flow spectrometer is used for measuring fast reactions in solution on ms – s timescale. Two or more reactants are rapidly mixed together and, as the reaction proceeds, the accompanying spectroscopic change (absorbance, fluorescence, anisotropy, or light scattering) measured as a function of time. In addition, the sample handling unit of a second SX20 stopped-flow spectrometer is housed within an anaerobic chamber enabling oxygen-sensitive reactions to be monitored. This latter instrument is equipped with a photodiode array (PDA) detector enabling entire sets of time-resolved spectra to be acquired from a single stopped-flow drive (up to 1000 spectra per second).

Hi-Tech RQF-63 Rapid Quench flow system

With the Hi-Tech RQF-63 Rapid Quench flow system reactants are driven through a high efficiency mixer and flow into a delay (or ageing) loop. After a set time (≈ 5ms – 100s) the reaction is stopped (or quenched) by the addition of a chemical quench solution. Reaction intermediates and products are then analysed by other analytical methods (mass spectrometry, HPLC etc.). This technique is useful when studying a reaction that is not accompanied by a spectroscopic change