Forston Labs

Portable Monitor/Mini GC System Lowers Remediation Analysis Times and Costs

Forston Labs now offers the Mini Gas Chromatograph (GC), a compact and portable device for field analysis. The new product is based on Seacoast’s SeaPORT Mini GC, which uses MEMS technology originally developed for the Army Research Laboratories, and is integrated with the Forston Labs LabNavigator resulting in a powerful, small shoebox-sized, lightweight, portable GC.

The Forston Mini GC provides unmatched capabilities for use in soil and water remediation, security and safety, industrial processing, quality control applications and a wide range of laboratory applications. This compact device allows technicians to collect data directly in the field, with the possibility of quickly transmitting it to the laboratory.

The addition of the Forston Mini GC to the LabNavigator system allows users to tailor the rugged, easy to operate equipment for over 30 parameters. The system has the ability to acquire, monitor, and analyze data from up to six simultaneous sensor inputs. This means compliance personnel can dramatically shorten the time needed to verify critical changes in environments or processes. Shortened response times lower remediation costs dramatically.

The hand-held LabNavigator is a multi-technology/multi-sensor analytical measurement platform used either as a computer interface, a stand-alone device or in the field for water analysis. Until now, analytical instrumentation used for water quality applications have either been low quality/cost or high quality/cost. Even moderately priced instruments of adequate quality are still a significant cost for water and wastewater plants.

With six sensor inputs (electrochemical, turbidity, spectrophotometer, and more), the cost-effective LabNavigator has a 100k samples per second collection rate. The instrument has built-in graphing and analysis software; 40 MB of on-board data storage, with further expansion through SD/MMC card, or USB drive; a vivid 320 x 240 pixel color touch screen easily visible outdoors, and; a rugged, splash proof enclosure with rubber molding for shock absorption. Other features are a rechargeable, high capacity internal battery or AC power; built-in air temperature sensor; microphone, and sound sensor; an on-screen keyboard; plus the easy ability to take notes during experiments and export the results to a PC.

We are pleased to announce that Forston Labs new LabNavigator instrument comes ready to interface with Ocean Optics spectrophotometers and fluorometers,” said Brian Williams, Forston Labs president and CEO. “The LabNavigator can now be used with USB spectrophotometers, allowing direct display of analyses on its color screen, whether in the field or in the laboratory.

Also introduced today is Forston’s affordable UV/Vis CCD spectrophotometer/fluorometer array instrument combination that allows analysts to collect a full wavelength spectrum absorbance,percent transmittance, or intensity in less than one second. Once the peak wavelength has been determined, the analyst can then easily determine the concentration of a solution or monitor rates of reaction.

Industrial Instrument

Portable Analytical Instrument Industrial :

Gold : EMD Millipore’s Scepter

Automated Handheld Cell Counter.

Silver :Forston Labs' multi-parameter analyzer has received several industry awards for its performance and portability.

Bronze : Wagtech’s Metalyser HM1000

Portable Heavy Metals Analyzer.

Laboratory Equipment Industrial :

Gold : Steroglass’s Strike 300

Rotary Evaporator .

Silver : ELGA’s PURELAB flex

Water Purification System .

Bronze : VELP Scientifica’s DKL Digester Series.

Analytical Instrument Industrial :

Gold : Illumina's for microarray analysis and next-generation sequencing.
Silver : Anton Paar’s Monowave 300
Microwave Synthesis Reactor.
Bronze : Affymetrix’s GeneAtlas System, a solution for personal microarray use.

About Us

A clean and safe environment is essential to life. The full range of analytical instrumentation required for ensuring this has to date been either of low cost and low quality or of high cost and high quality. Today's moderately priced equipment which is of sufficient capability, is still often a very significant cost for Water and Wastewater Plants, Industrial Applications, Environmental Studies and for a multitude of other Analytical Laboratories.

Forston Labs strives to make high-quality analytical instruments accessible to laboratories and industrial sites, combining multiple technologies in a single, easy-to-use interface. Our method is to bring these different technologies into one interface, and increase ease of use and affordability. The LabNavigator System provides a common, handheld, easy to use, rugged interface for over thirty different sensor types. Including technologies for temperature to colorimetry, electrochemistry and even gas chromatography, analytical chemistry for all users is taking a leap forward with the LabNavigator