As the health of our planet continues to be an issue at the forefront of many people's minds, environmental research labs are busier than ever exploring and developing ways we can further protect our ecosystem. This is especially true for the McKenzie Environmental Engineering Research Group, a laboratory run by Erica McKenzie at Temple University in Pennsylvania.
The environmental engineering and chemistry group focuses on pollutants in natural and engineered systems. Using both field-based and lab-based experimental work, they assess how pollutants move through a system in order to develop and implement treatment strategies. Dr. McKenzie primarily deals with metals and perfluorocompound fate and transport.
Many of the lab's current projects focus on assessing and treating poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known as PFAS. These man-made "forever chemicals" have wreaked havoc on the health of our environment by migrating into our soil, water, and air. As more and more health concerns have emerged in connection with PFAS exposure, there has been a significant push to assess and treat these harmful chemicals.
The McKenzie Group concentrates down PFAS sample extracts prior to their mass spec analysis - a process completed by Organomation's N-EVAP nitrogen evaporators. Instead of purchasing/renting nitrogen tanks to supply their sample concentrator, which can be quite expensive, the lab invested in the NITRO-GEN, a benchtop laboratory generator.
The N2 generator produces high-purity nitrogen gas on-demand so they never have to worry about tank refills or replacements. The complete plug-and-play solution simplifies the nitrogen generation process, leaving the lab more time to meet their sample throughput requirements, which is especially important as their demand grows.
"We have had a NITRO-GEN since 2019, which we are using with a 24 position N-EVAP, and this is still going strong. We purchased another NITRO-GEN and N-EVAP system to expand our capacity and are excited about the newer model functionality to select the output purity." - Erica McKenzie, Ph.D.
For many laboratories, nitrogen generators can be a much more cost-effective solution than purchasing nitrogen tanks. Acquiring a generator and producing your own nitrogen is a worthwhile investment that can completely eliminate all the fees associated with tank rentals, which can prove to be very important for academic labs like Temple who often have to work around strict budgets. For high-volume laboratories, the payback period on the NITRO-GEN generator can be as short as 1-3 years.
For more information on nitrogen generators, please contact our team at sales@organomation.com and check out our comprehensive guide: Nitrogen Generators: Everything You Need to Know
