A common task that needs to be done in agricultural research applications is the transfer of ground plant material such as leaves, stems and seeds from one container to another in preparation for further testing. The REDI® powder dispensing system is an ideal tool to automated this tedious task. The powder transfer capabilities of the REDI in combination with the weighing of the distributed samples also provides the most accurate method to accomplish plant material transfers.

Transferring solids with an automated system is always a challenge due to the widely varying physical characteristics of various source powders. Dried and ground plant materials generally are suitable for use with the Zinsser REDI powder transfer system. Zinsser customer are successfully using the system to transfer various leaves such as arabidopsis leaves, tobacco leaves, linseed and others.

The REDI can be configured with racks to accommodate virtually any type and size of source and destination containers. Some examples of containers that have been used as source and/or destination:

• Glass test tubes of various sizes, either round or flat bottom
• 50 ml conical bottom plastic tubes
• Glass or plastic vials of varying volumes
• Compound storage microtubes in SBS-footprint racks of 96
• Deep well or shallow well microplates in 24, 48 or 96 well configuration

The combination of a reliable and high-speed robotic sample process and a selection from Zinsser's many unique tools will offer you the opportunity to automate your sample preparation processes for the best benefit of speed, labor-savings, efficiency and accuracy. Please CONTACT US for more information or to configure a system for your own needs.

Integrated Analytical Balance

The REDI platform includes an integrated 4- or 5-place analytical balance which records the exact amount of material that is transferred to each destination container.

An externally mounted balance can be used with the REDI tool directly transferring material into a tared vial (shown here). A robot gripper moves labware onto and off of the balance. Alternatively, a balance can be integrated directly on the deck. The second option allows a rack of destination tubes or vials to be placed on the balance and tared. Each additional powder dispense into a new container will then be recorded as the rack is filled.

This video shows a typical powder transfer operation. The steps shown twice are:

• Aspirate powder from source container
• Source container "shakes" to evenly distribute the powder
• Transfer powder into destination container
• Wash powder probe

There are many options to choose from to configure a system to best fit a particular need, including:

• Transfer from a single source container in bulk to many smaller destination containers OR transfer from many sources to many destinations
• Different source containers, including directly using customer-supplied containers if necessary (such as collection tubes coming directly from the field)
• Different methods to help evenly distribute the source powder if necessary such as stirring or shaking
• Disposable powder tips to eliminate carryover between samples
• Bar code scanning for source and/or destination labware
• Liquid addition can be added to any REDI system if desired to automated additional sample preparation steps