Laboratory Balance and Scales : Tilting the Balance Towards Innovation

Abhrasnata Das

With evolving market scenarios, different industries such as healthcare, pharmaceutical and more, are increasingly facing challenges in regards to standardisation of products and the exact composition of samples. To quantify the mass of items, including solids, liquids, and tissues, laboratories are now quickly adopting intelligent laboratory balances and scales. Monitoring a sample's weight or mass is an important step while conducting an experiment, and it is often examined once more after the last phase.

Moreover, a sharp rise in research and development studies at institutions also with developing biotechnology and medical industries are fueling the demand for laboratory balances and scales. Today, the market for laboratory balances and scales is also expanding due to the widespread use of these instruments in places like jewellery stores and art galleries.

Increasing demand for laboratory balances and scales in turn is creating new space for novel innovations. In fact, technological advancements have been a rising trend of the laboratory balances and scales market, reports Markets and Markets. Today the industry massively leverages software and innovative solutions like hand gestures.

In this article we have listed three most innovative progress that are raising the bars in terms of precision, accuracy and control.

Data Connectivity

The need for connecting a laboratory balance to other devices and equipment is increasingly gaining traction in lab operations. Regulators now promote the use of cutting-edge tools and software to guarantee that electronic data is captured properly and stays that way over time. Due to this, a variety of sectors, including the biopharmaceutical and consumer goods industries, have invested in digital solutions including electronic lab notebooks and laboratory information management systems (LIMS).

Following the ALCOA (attributable, legible, contemporaneous, original, and accurate) guidelines outlined by the authorities is necessary to achieve data integrity. An institute can determine the time and method of a certain data collection with the use of attributed data, which also promotes transparency. Additionally, techniques exist to guarantee that readable material has been permanently stored in a readable format.

Contemporaneous data is recorded with a timestamp at the moment the work was completed; this is crucial since auditors want to go deeper into the original data record.

CollectTM, a software designed by PerkinElmer, is one example of software that connects and controls instruments with RS-232 serial interface ports, USB, Bluetooth or TCP/IP server. The software automates data transfer and testing, connecting balances directly to other instruments running in Windows.

Intelligent Measurement

Measurements being critical in determining the outcome of any laboratory process, it is imperative to ensure the accuracy of the result. However, with multiple variables like — temperature, humidity, air pressure, massively influencing the outcome of the results, obtaining an accurate result has been a major pain-point for the labs.

That being said, integration of advanced innovations such as — gesture control, climate monitoring, with the analytical balances are helping the industry to largely mitigate the underlined challenges. With advanced features on the line, labs can now control the environment to specific conditions to obtain accurate results.

Sartorius, a Germany based pharmaceutical equipment manufacturing company has recently released its new Cubis that comes with an innovative and modular design and it comes with a broad selection of capacity and readability options, draft shield types, weighing pans and displays. Moreover, the firm has also incorporated novel innovations like — the automatic motorised levelling function, gesture control, climate monitoring, status centre notification, and stabilisation time to aid the performance of measuring samples and weighing them in a pharmaceutical or medical-device environment.

Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM)

The ultra-sensitive quartz crystal microbalance can detect changes in mass per unit area at the nano- to microgram level. By providing the proper voltage, often using metal electrodes, quartz, a piezoelectric material, may be induced to oscillate at a certain frequency. Small quantities of mass added or subtracted from the electrode surface can change the frequency of oscillation. The QCM can provide useful information on the amount of mass deposited and the rate of deposition (or removal) of such films by monitoring the real-time change in frequency.

Novaetech S.r.l, a company engaged in production of innovative sensors, have developed a new generation of mass sensors based on quartz crystal microbalance and MEMS technologies for which Novaetech has already provided its expertise in many fields of applications.

What to Expect?

With different industries like – pharma, biotech, food and beverages, etc growing at an exponential rate, the demand for laboratory balances and scales are poised for a steady growth. The global market for Laboratory Balances and Scales estimated to reach a revised size of US$1.4 Billion by 2027, reposts Research and Market.

Furthermore, increased deployment of balances and scales across multiple industries, will in turn make space for more innovations. Today, the new concepts like gesture control, climate monitoring and more are actively explored and implemented in the balances to improve the operational efficiency. That being said, it is safe to conclude that the balance of the future will be integrated with novel techs like —- artificial intelligence, machine learning and more; thereby taking the game to next level.