New products

Information published in this department is based on releases from the manufacturers of the products described. The manufacturers' literature accompanying the products should be consulted for complete details concerning dosage and administration, precautions, contraindications, and possible side effects.

It is compatible with all Salter platforms and can be connected to a platform for a specified hazardous application, creating a complete, intrinsically safe weighing machine. The WI-150 is available in mains or battery powered versions. It is also fully expandable and can be interfaced with computers, printers and control equipment. As such peripheral equipment often needs to be located in a safe area, unless it has its own hazardous area approval the WI-150 includes an optional fibre optics data interface card to enable transmission of signals, via a fibre optic cable, to receiving circuitry in a safe area. Details jqom Salter Weigh-Tronix on (fax) 0121 553 0494.
Mass spectrometry packages for education A range of high performance mass spectrometry packages specifically tailored for the UK academic research and teaching environment are now available from Fisons Instruments/VG Organi.c. With analytical instruments in higher education institutions in constant use, the instrument data system is often tied up, so it is frequently unavailable for data processing, teaching students, etc. VG Organic's educational packages come complete with a networked data system, and incorporate a high performance notebook computer using the same Windows based MassLab 1.2 software used to run the instrument.
Its flexibility as a portable system means that it can be used in the lab to access data on the hard disk of the primary data system or moved to an office or classroom to suit individual work requirements. A choice of mass spectrometry systems is available with the package: (1) MD 800 GC/MS: Equipped with a proven gas chromatograph and the full range of GC/MS ionization techniques: library searchable EI ionization, molecular weight confirming positive CI and ultrasensitive negative CI.
(2) MD 800 LCD LC/MS: A powerful and robust particle beam HPLC mass detector, again complete with EI, CI + and CIionization sources, and which can be coupled to existing HPLC systems.
(3 The GC Sojqbook (R) Ji'om ATI Unicam provides training in gas chromatography, giving practical interactive learning of both instrumental and chemical aspects of the technique. The user can watch the animation demonstrating the working of an instrument; adjust parameters to see their effect; pursue their own lines of enquiry according to their needs, and return to areas of uncertainty. More information jom ATI Unicam, York Street, Cambridge CB1 2PX, UK.

Gas analyser
The 610/74 High Purity Gas Analyser is a customdesigned system which routinely measures gases at low ppb levels. An information pack is available which contains a technical article, a comprehensive product report detailing the analyser, and several application notes. The notes describe the application of the 610/74 to the analysis of impurities in gases such as argon, helium, carbon dioxide, silane, boron trichloride and ethylene at levels down to less than 50 ppb.

Moisture meter
The Shaw hygrometer gives unusual information regarding moisture in almost any manufactured or natural substance.
It measures partial water vapour pressure rather than relative humidity which is of critical importance in any sample which may give trouble at a later date in storage. A rapid one second check on instant coffee, breakfast cereals, pills and tablets, is now possible. Moisture in dry liquids, such as transformer oil, LPG and fuel oil can also be quickly indicated.
With dry and wet alarms, a clear numeral LCD with a backlight, the Shaw hygrometer has a very wide range of measurement from less than one part per million of moisture to a dewpoint of plus 37C (a range of one to 60000). Discrimination is one part in two thousand and it has an interesting appearance during rapid reading changes of only one second from dry to wet. The 'Autodew' is supplied complete with detachable table stand, and a snap in facility for easy panel fitting. Although designed for moisture checks on any small sample, any increase in vapour pressure secures an alarm in still air over samples, or in flowing air or gas.

Multi-element analysis
The MDX1000 from Oxford Instruments is a low cost, fully integrated spectrometer. Using MDXRF--Multi-Dispersive X-Ray Fluoresence--high performance, simultaneous measurements can be made on both low to high atomic number elements.
The MDX1000 was designed with the industrial user in mind: it is robust and compact and can be located either in a laboratory or close to the process to be controlled. Using the PSA software, which controls the operation of the instrument system and collects the data, it is possible to analyse samples for the elements over seven orders of magnitude, at analysis rates of up to 80 samples per hour.
Recently, the range of analytes has been extended to include bismuth which is important in biological and metallurgical samples. The  Origin uses Windows to analyse, graph, and professionally present data for scientific and engineering applications.
It requires minimal hardware (386/DX or higher, 4MR RAM, Windows 3.1 or later) and is very compact (4MB HD). A new 2 D graphics toolbar allows users to instantly access many graph types including new vector and polar graphs, as well as line, scatter, area, bar, pie, and statistical charts. New features in Origin 4.0, including baseline and peak analysis, designed for spectroscopy, improved Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) that facilitates digital signal processing, and a powerful nonlinear curve fitter with approximately 200 built-in functions, complement existing analytical tools such as smoothing, regression, and ANOVA. Toolbars are included to access the new features, simplifying the interface. Toolbars and menu commands can be customized or built using Origin's scripting language, LabTalkTM, now a full featured C-like language.