Rothamsted Research Plant Material Dispenser

The Rothamsted Research systems were installed and commissioned in 2008. The first module gravimetrically feeds pre-ground, freeze-dried plant material into Micronic tubes and GC vials. The system uses a novel method of powder feeding which eliminates any cross contamination between samples and also required no new consumable types. The system is designed to dispense 1mg of freeze-dried Arabidopsis to an accuracy of ±0.05mg.

Main Features

  • Input capacity of 288 barcoded Falcon tubes containing freeze dried powder
  • Input tubes are barcoded for sample information details
  • Output capacity of:
    • 9 Micronic racks, individual tubes are 2D barcoded
    • 9 GC vial racks
    • Storage for 9 racks of GC vial caps
  • 2 powder feeders for parallel operation and redundancy
  • Feeds 1mg +-/ 0.05mg for GC vials
  • Feeds 15mg +/- 0.15mg for Micronic tubes
  • Configurable sequence options:
    • Specify target powder feeding weight
    • Specify target consumables
    • Prepare output sample data files