Equipment and Capabilities

Equipment and Capabilities for Rent

Akina, Inc. has a wide variety of equipement and capabilities available both for contract research as well as available for lease. Listed below is equipment broken down by laboratory usage.  This is not an all inclusive list and contact a representative to discuss your project or equipment rental needs

Biology Lab

Akina Inc. has a fully functional biological laboratory equiped with an U.V. Sterilizing Laminar Flow Hood (Labconco, Purifier class II biosafety Cabinet), a Yamato steam sterilizing Autoclave, an ethylene oxide sterilizer (Alfa Medical Z-AX-60-N Sterilizer), an Orbital Shaking Incubator (Model SHKE4450, Barnstead), and a temperature controlled incubator.  Akina Inc. can perform basic biological testing (e.g. USP #61 bacterial count) and other tests on a routine basis and other testing as well as sample preparation can be performed as needed.

Chemistry Lab

Akina Inc. has a fully functional chemistry lab equiped with Analytical balances, Vacuum Pumps, pH Meter (Fisher, AB-15), Bath sonicator (Branson, 5510), Chemical Fume Hood, fluorometer, Orbital Shaking Incubator (Model SHKE4450, Barnstead), turbidimeter, and a U.V. Vis Spectrophotometer (Shimadzu, UV-2401PC).  In addition, this lab is fully stocked with most common chemical reagents. This lab can be utilized to perform chemical analysis and for sample preparation.

Polymer Synthesis Lab

Akina Inc. houses a fully climate controlled polymer synthesis laboratory.  This low-humidity laboratory has two reactor set-ups including precision temperature controlled magnetically stirred oil baths, Duoseal deep vacuums for oxygen/humidity removal, argon and nitrogen purge gasses available as well as reaction set-ups for UV initiated/heat initiated polymer synthesis reactions.  Click here to see some of the products that come out of this lab.  Akina Inc. can perform custom polymer synthesis in this lab and contact a representative to learn more.

In addition to the common equipment Akina has some specialized equipment as well.

HPLC/SEC

Optical Analysis

Akina Inc. offers visual microscope and stereoscope analysis utilizing an Olympus BX51 microscope with pictures recorded via a DP70 camera.  These images can be recorded at 1-4 (stereoscope), 20, 60, or 100X magnification in the following image modes.

Microscope

Stereoscope

Available Imaging Modes

Brightfield transmitted – Shows images with light transmitted through the sample.

Example – Fresh Human Blood in saline solution: 40X brightfield

Darkfield  – Darkfield eliminates all non-scattered light from around the view showing crisp images of the outline of translucent samples even without using a stain.

Example – Fresh Human Blood in saline solution: 40X darkfield

Phase Contrast -  Phase contrast converts small phase shifts in the light passing through a transparent specimen into contrast changes in the image.

Example – Fresh Human Blood in saline solution: 40X Phase Contrast

Differential Interference Contrast – Technique uses the principle of interferometry to gain information about the optical density of the sample, to see otherwise invisible features.

Example – Fresh Human Blood in saline solution: 40X Differential Interference Contrast

In addition to these visualization modes images can also be collected under crossed polarizers, brightfield reflected, and fluorescent modes.

Images can be analyzed by image analysis software (Olympus, Microsuite 5) to quantify features such as geometric dimensions, brightness, color, shape factor, and many others.

Mechanical Analysis

Mechanical/Texture Analysis

Akina inc. offers texture analysis via a Texture Technologies Corporation TA.XTplus.  The current configuration utilizes a 5 kg load cell for extreme sensitivity with soft and elastic materials.  The testing arm can be equipped with either tensile grips for tensile testing or a ¼ inch steel ball/half inch dacron cylinder for compressive testing.

Typical mechanical tests include elastic modulus from 0-2% strain, stress relaxation (a.k.a. creep) as percent decline in force over 60 seconds of being held at a constant strain, elongation to break, yield stress.  Akina can custom design tests to your specifications as well as perform textural tests such as crispiness and firmness.  Below are elastic modulus and stress relaxation of some common food ingredients.

Texture analyzer shown with tensile grips

Other attachments available for texture analyzer

Table 7. Elasticity and stress relaxation of commonly known items.

Item	Elasticity (kPa/%)	Stress Relaxation (%)
Marshmallow (Great Value)	0.6 ± 0.1	38.3 ± 1.8
Gummi Worm (Great Value)	0.7 ± 0.2	46.2 ± 2.8
Gum (Ice Breakers “Ice Cubes”)	29.9 ± 7.7+	10.0 ± 1.5
Crouton (Rothbury Farms)	36.6 ± 10.4	63.4 ± 14.1
Sugar Cube (Domino)	112.0 ± 12.1	NA*

+ Gum coated with hard sugar coating.
* Sugar Cube could not be compressed to 20%.

Mechanical analysis can be performed using texture exponent software allowing for mechanical as well as textural properties to be quantified.

Rheometric Analysis

Rheometric tests can be performed at Akina, Inc. utilizing an AR550 (TA Instruments) Rheometer in the temperature range of ambient to 150°C. 

This peltier controlled rheometer has both a 20 and an 8 mm attachment for viscosities ranging from water to viscous polymer melts.  Rheometer can do both basic viscosity as well as oscillation measurements with continous or stepped sweeps of temperature, frequency, stress, as well as other variables.  G’,G”, Delta and other rheometric variables are collected in oscillation mode.  Rheological as well as molecular information about the material can be gleaned from this data.

Rheometer

Rheometer attachments

Rheometric data can be analyzed on Rheology Advantage Data Analysis software

Small Lot Sterilization

Akina, Inc. offers small lot ethylene oxide sterilization by a model Z-AX-60-N Sterilizer.  Unlike other sterilization methods, sterilization can be done on any material regardless of sensitivity to degradation or lack of heat/radiation resistance.  Any kind of plastic, rubber, sensitive, metal, mechanic or electromechanic medical, surgical materials and laboratory equipment can be sterilized.  This operates by applying the anti-bacteriologic agent, Ethylene Oxide at 54 °C. 

Sterilization is confirmed by ETO sensitive labels as well as by other means and the sterilized material will be packaged aseptically and shipped back to you.