Global FIA

The combined fluidics experience of staff at Global FIA exceeds 100 years.  This experience spans fields of use from medical devices to instrumentation for the mining industry.  Our developers have demonstrated innovation in solutions that address real world problems.  Many of these solutions have resulted in patentable technology and perhaps more importantly the designation - "Problem Solved".

Our fluid handling expertise stretches all the way from sample prep to analyte detection.  Our solutions employ the power of Zone Fluidics to provide ultimate control of fluidics element of interest.  Where new hardware is needed our engineers scour the present art for solutions and where these do not exist, new hardware tailored to the task at hand is conceived, prototyped, tested and commercialized.  In tackling a new problem the full extent of our expertise base is applied to meeting your expectations.

 

In the development of a wet chemistry method of analysis, several factors must be considered.  Methods usually include some or all of the following elements:

• dissolution
• purification or separations
• sample conditioning
• transformation into a detectable species
• detection

In addition for automated instrumental techniques, provision must also be made for automated instrument start up, clean up, and shut down.

Global FIA has found Zone Fluidics to be a powerful approach to many unit operations found in wet chemical analytical methodologies.  Our team of application scientists will start from existing measurement methods and apply them to an automated Zone Fluidics platform.  A toolbox of sample manipulation and separation unit operations provide a good starting point for system design.  Having optimized each step in the assay, the performance of the method is demonstrated by determining the analytical figures of merit.

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Having developed an analytical method, it is usually necessary to deploy the method on a suitable instrumental platform. Global FIA has developed a generic platform called the FloPro which lends itself to being customized to accommodate a collection of fluid handling unit operations. The FloPro architecture also lends itself to being customized for a number of different operational environments.

1. Its small size make it ameanble to being deployed as a portable device. In this role it has been used as a roll-up analyzer and is suited to be used as a point-of-care device.
2. With a small footprint, it is ideally suited to use in the laboratory where it occupies very little bench space.
3. Packaged into a IP65 enclosure, the FloPro is well suited to being used in the process as an on-line analyzer. The level of automation built into its software and procedures allow it to be used in an unattended autonomous mode of operation

Software

A key component of any system is the software.  Global FIA has invested significantly in the development of a powerful and user-friendly device control, data acquistion and data manipulation package called FloZF©.  Particular attention was given to the user-interface and a design that favors the developer.  In the latest release of the software we have added the ability to manipulate variables.  This provides a giant increase in the power of the package.

New features are being added that also allow the software to be configured for users who simply want the software to execute their sequences and do not want to make changes to the underlying method.  A free demo version of the software can be downloaded from the software section of the Global FIA store

Commercial products

In the early days of FIA, the most fertile repository of manifold components was the Chromatographer's laboratory.  Since those early days, a whole suite of custom components have been developed for those practising flow based analysis.  These components are now available commercially as stocked items.  Global FIA provides a single source for many of the components needed to equip and maintain a flow-based analysis laboratory.

The range of components offered includes:

• Pumps - milliGAT™, syringe, and others
• Valves - selection, injection, and others
• Tubing - PFA, PEEK, Tygon™, Pharmed™, and others
• Fittings
• Adapters
• Heaters
• Reservoirs and vials
• Gas diffusion and permeation devices
• Mini-columns and separation cells
• Bead handling devices
• Flow meters, low dead-volume temperature and pressure meters
• A wide range of flow cells and detectors such as photometric (uv and vis), chemiluminescence, fluorescence, amperometric, and potentiometric devices.

In recent years we have added a number of sampling components as well.  These include:

• the unique supported capillary membrane sampler (SCMS)
• self cleaning filters
• sampling probes for sampling slurries, and other heterogeneous samples
• sterile sample probes
• inertia filters also called tangential flow filters

All of these devices are available in the Global FIA store.

Custom component development

Global FIA will gladly work at developing components not commercially available and in doing so have accumulated a large toolbox of fluid handling devices.  Custom-developed components are added to our product range to ensure ongoing support.