Facilities

The department continuously reviews experimental conditions and practices with the aim of identifying possible improvements in their environmental performance. Special emphasis is placed on chemicals used and waste generated.

Priority is given to waste minimization through substitution of chemicals used, in-lab treatment, as well as downscaling of experiments, where possible. In addition, collection, segregation, storage and disposal practices for generated hazardous chemical waste are reviewed and continuously updated.

Moisture Balance Mettler Toledo HS153 Moisture Analyzer made in Switzerland. Moisture balance determines the moisture content of a sample with the loss on drying method, and it consists of a weighing and infrared heating unit. Moisture Analyzer works according to the thermo-gravimetric principle. It is also referred to as the Loss on Drying (LOD) principle. The moisture analyzer consists of two components: a balance unit and a heating unit. The moisture content is measured by recording the initial sample weight. Then, an infrared radiator heats and dries the sample while the integrated balance continually records the sample weight. When the sample no longer loses weight, the instrument stops, and the moisture content is calculated.

Refractive Index Analyzer RUDOLPH Research J357 Automatic Refractometer made in USA. It is designed as a research quality, and it has the highest performance of any refractometer in the Rudolph range. This instrument offers the same extra-wide range in chemical industry models combined with the high accuracy of food industry models. It is used to measure the refractive index of different liquids, especially in food chemistry. In addition, it offers the most powerful temperature control, and it measures up to 120 °C.

Texture Analyzer Stable Microsystems TA XT- plus Texture Analyzer made in the UK.  It is capable of measuring virtually any physical product characteristic, such as hardness, fracturability, adhesiveness, gel strength, and extensibility of foods, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, gels, adhesives and other consumer products. The TA XT plus is commonly employed to measure and quantify fundamental, empirical and imitative tests in both compression and tension, covering those relating to texture analysis, materials properties as well as effects of the rheology of solid, semi-solid, viscous liquid, powder and granulate materials. It presents a small portable solution for your texture analysis testing, measuring up to 50 kg in force.

HPLC Dionex Ultimate 3000 from Thermo-Scientific is made in the USA. It is a Chromatographic technique that can be used to analyze organic compounds and pharmaceutical drugs qualitatively and quantitatively by separating and analyzing them, respectively, using a diode array detector.

Potential and Size, Analyzer Malvern Zetasizer Nano series Nano-ZS90, made in the UK from El-Nozha trade. It is a system for the measurement of particle size and molecular size at a 90-degree scattering angle using Dynamic Light Scattering; it also with the ability to measure zeta potential and electrophoretic mobility using Laser Doppler Microelectrophoresis and molecular weight using Static Light Scattering.

Electrospinners (2 instruments). These Electrospinners were collected and fabricated in the chemistry department at AUC. Electrospinners are used to synthesize nanofibers that can be used in different applications in science.

Myr Viscosimeter (VR-3000) Viscotech Hispania made in Spain. It is a rotational viscometer that can be used to determine the viscosity of different liquid solutions as one of the most important physical properties.

Acquity UPLC MS/MS system Waters, USA, it is ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem tandem-quadruple mass spectrometry detector equipped with an electrospray ionization (ESI) probe. It enables scientists the ability to perform routine and complex separation challenges while delivering reliability, robustness, sensitivity, and low detection limit.

The FP-528 Nitrogen/Protein from LECO is a cost-effective alternative to Kjeldahl digestion methods; the nitrogen is measured with a thermal conductivity detector using helium as a reference. Nitrogen is then converted to protein using a conversion factor. It is used for a wide range of food and nitrogen-containing substances.

The CFX96 Touch System, Biorad, Singapore, is a powerful, precise, and flexible real-time PCR detection system used to increase the intensity of a fluorescent signal generated by an intercalating dye or from the breakdown of a dye-labeled probe during the amplification of a target sequence to detect nucleic acids either for their presence or absence or for their amount.

Fluostar-omega, BMG-LABTECH, Germany, is a multi-mode microplate reader with six detection modes. It utilizes an ultra-fast UV/vis spectrometer or filters for absorbance, as well as highly sensitive filters for all other detection modes.

Veriti Thermal Cycler, Applied Biosystem, Singapore, is specifically designed to meet the needs of labs performing standard PCR along with PCR optimization in the 96-well format. The Veriti is fast-enabled, which means that the system has the flexibility to run fast chemistries.

IXplore Inverted Imaging Platform OLYMPUS corporation, Japan, used for Repeatability and accuracy for standard imaging tasks, benefits from the same optical capabilities found in high-end IXplore systems, Easily upgrade to encoded functionality to boost reproducibility of experiments, obtaining high-quality images, even with standard cell culture vessels with dedicated objectives.

Autoflow IR direct heat co2 incubator, nuaire, USA. They deliver a higher level of performance for a dependable and reliable controlled in-vitro environment for optimum tissue cell culture growth by properly controlling temperature, humidity, CO2 gas, and sterility.

Biohazard Safety Cabinet JSCB- 1200SB, jsresearch, Korea. It is a cabinet enclosure designed to maintain Class II, Clean air in the cabinet as well as keep the environment protected from pathogenic organisms such as bacteria or viruses. Class II is Designed for personnel, products, samples and environment protection, various applications in medical, biomedical, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, cell culture, tissue culture, virology and pathology applications.

Deep Freezer, Ilshin Lab, Korea, ilShin only chooses the most reliable components available in the world. The reliable, proven Bristol compressors are used in a unique cascade system with very low pressures and a completely sealed cooling system.

The QIAxcel, Qiagen,  system performs fully automated separation of DNA and RNA fragments according to their molecular weight and can process up to 96 samples per run. The QIAxcel system consists of the QIAxcel instrument, Determination of the ratio, concentration, and quality of total RNA, and the quality of cRNA/cDNA and fragmented RNA/DNA.