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Nitrate, nitrite, ammonia and phosphate - perhaps the most frequently assayed pollutants of fresh water, are easily assayed with the LAB-ON-VALVE system using EPA approved reagents. While conventional continuous flow techniques (Autoanalyzer or Flow Injection) are well established for these assays, the lab-on-valve instrument consumes less reagents and creates far less waste.   

All routine colorimetric assays can be automated in LAB-ON-VALVE  using commercially available  reagent kits, or in-lab made reagents.  Typically several  hundred FIAlab-on-valve assays can be performed using around the same amount of reagent as a single manually performed  measurement. The Nitrate method, using a column of copperized cadmium, is miniaturized in LAB-ON-VALVE  system to contain 20 times less metallic cadmium  than the conventional columns used for continuous flow.

Since a typical measurement cycle lasts about one minute, and since the shutdown or startup of FIAlab-on-valve instrument takes less than 5 minutes, it is easy to change from one type of an assay to another by switching the reagents, selecting an appropriate wavelength and software protocol. In contrast to traditional flow based methods the flow system does not need to be reconfigured, when changing the reagent based assay since the mixing, reagent sequencing, incubation and measurement are adjusted solely by changing the software protocol. In this way the same instrument can be used for different assays in turn, which is advantageous when small series of samples are to be assayed. Large series can be analyzed fully automatically, since FIAlab-on-valve system is compatible with many sample changers.