Prepare and Analyze a Plant Extract by GC

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	Plant Extract
	Application Type
	Sample Prep and Inject
	Application ID
	Plant1001
	Description
	Analyzing a Plant Extract for Chemicals

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Plant material and biomass in general are not just for food and feed any longer. They have become the feedstock for fuel, neutraceuticals, drugs and food supplements such as OMEGA-3 or other strong antioxidants. There is a growing research community that looks from a genetics and maximum yield perspective at many bio-organism. A primary example are seeds for oil or algae for OMEGA-3. All these examples have one complication in common: Before analysis for the presence of certain chemicals (molecules) an extract has to be generated out of the raw sample. Fibers, skin and other natural tissue has to be filtered and many constituants of the plants that are of interest have to be extracted in an extraction and separation process. There are many procedures that use a manual approach. As long as the methodology of plant research is its trial and error stage automation can't be justified. However, once a systematic work flow is well defined an automated process is not only more productive but leads to more consistency and less wasteful use of materials, disposables, solvents and of course highly educated personnel's time. LEAP had many customers that successfully got their extractions automated. Some started out with Seeds, Algae, Tobacco and other leafy plants. The automation was in many cases "just-in time" sample preparation on LEAP's primary XYZ platform the CTC PAL with a subsequent injection onto a Gas Chromatograph or Mass Spectrometer.

Often a GC Twin PAL accomplishes the extraction and filtration before a GC analyzes plant extract material. The application is to take a vial containing plant material, add solvent, heat & agitator, filter, and then analyze on a 6890 GC. This application may be applicable to any customer who wants to do filtration providing the liquid can be pushed thru the filter plate with a low pressure inert gas through the headspace syringe.

Additional accessories such as an integrated balance (Mettler) and a barcode scanner[1] have been added in the past.

Markets Served:
Elements of this application can be applied to labs requiring any type of filtration of a sample while maximizing throughput.

University
Research
FDA
EPA
USDA

What is a Plant Extract experiment?
The sample prep procedure is quite simple with the exception of the final sample needing to not contain any of the plant material when it gets to the analysis procedure. The samples are incubated in a heated agitator, and then allowed to settle. The sample solvent, possible containing small pieces of plant material, is injected onto a 96 well filter plate in the top of a SPE drawer with a 19ga headspace syringe using the Combi PAL, the needle guide is locked, and then flushed (purged) with a stream of inert gas (e.g. Helium) forcing the solvent through the filter plate into the receiving plate below. The other PAL then makes the liquid injection from the receiving plate into the GC.

LEAPS Approach
The GC Twin PAL in combination with the cycle composer makes a very effective and flexible workstation. We were able to design and provide a solution which met the following challenges from the customer:

Provide the necessary filtration to have clean samples to analyze. In order to get good blow-out of the liquid through the filter, it was determined that the filter plate should be sealed and have a small nozzle on the underside to ensure accurate collection without crossover to adjacent collection vials.
Throughput. By using a Twin PAL we are able to take advantage of having one PAL do the preparation while the other does the sample injections.
Spatial concerns. Provide a way to get everything that was required to fit.