Waters and Dow Announce Major Breakthrough in Advanced Polymer Analysis at Pittcon

ACQUITY Advanced Polymer Chromatography System Showcased Along With Paradigm Scientific Search and Quality Control Reference Materials

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Waters Corporation

Mar 18, 2013, 08:00 ET

PHILADELPHIA, March 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) today unveiled several important new technologies at the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, commonly known as Pittcon, the annual premier conference and exposition on laboratory science.

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Highlighting Waters technology introductions is Waters^® ACQUITY^® Advanced Polymer Chromatography™ (APC™) System, a system that defines a new category of chromatographic polymer analysis, yielding improved molecular weight information about polymeric species, faster than ever before.

Waters also announced it is expanding its laboratory informatics offerings, with the addition of Paradigm™ Scientific Search Software, a powerful information access platform. It takes search far beyond basic keywords by enabling users to perform object-based searches across both structured and unstructured data and across different data platforms.

In addition, Waters added Quality Control Reference Materials (QCRMs) and Certified Containers to the Analytical Standards and Reagents product group that was launched at last year's Pittcon.

"Pittcon has always been the best venue for us to unveil our latest technologies and share our vision for tomorrow. Today's product launches, particularly the ACQUITY Advanced Polymer Chromatography System, highlights how Waters' focused approach to driving innovation is improving laboratory capabilities and ensuring that our customers will be successful," said Art Caputo, President of Waters Division.

Waters Re-Ignites Innovation in the Chemical Materials Market with ACQUITY APC

Today, Waters ushered in the next era in polymer discovery with the introduction of the ACQUITY APC System. The system, which was developed in collaboration with The Dow Chemical Company, delivers dramatically improved polymer peak resolution, particularly for low molecular weight polymers and oligomers up to 20 times faster than traditional gel permeation chromatography (GPC).

The ACQUITY Advanced Polymer Chromatography (APC) System is comprised of an innovative, refractive index detector that has been optimized for low dispersion but with the low noise and drift performance required for accurate integration, even at low polymer concentrations.

The precise flow delivery of the isocratic solvent manager ensures that the calibrated system delivers accurate molecular weight data, day after day. Additionally, the system features new column technology based on rigid, sub 3 micron, high-pore-volume bridged-ethyl hybrid particles that provide significant gains in stability and faster separations.

Ian King, Waters vice president of Separations Technologies, noted that APC represents a major change from soft gel columns that are susceptible to swelling in the solvents used for polymer analysis.

"With APC, scientists can run diverse polymer applications on a single system, on one bank of columns with a variety of solvents," he said. "Now our customers can significantly improve laboratory efficiency and asset utilization. This collaboration with Dow is an example of what can happen when you merge leading edge technology with excellent innovation and effective collaboration."

"Industry is on a constant quest to identify and understand the properties of new materials while making the process of innovation faster, simpler and more sustainable," said Dow's Jim Alexander, Associate Research & Development Director, Core R&D Analytical Sciences. "This new capability will help solve critical R&D challenges, helping scientists to drive to solutions more quickly, with improved data quality."

For more information: www.waters.com/apc

Waters Paradigm Scientific Search Software Improves Access to Enterprise-Wide Scientific Information

Waters new Paradigm Scientific Search provides scientists, engineers, and managers in science-based organizations with easy and secure access to information across enterprise-wide data repositories. Easy access to critical information helps drive product innovation, development, and manufacturing, resulting in improved time to market.

"Paradigm Scientific Search enables content consumers to find scientifically relevant information across data silos, whether structured or unstructured, and search by science objects," says Dr. Rohit Khanna, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for the Waters Division. "It allows science-based organizations to fully leverage their science content to make better evidence-based decisions."

Paradigm Scientific Search is unrivalled in its ability to mine data repositories for science objects, such as chemical structures, reactions, spectra, chromatograms, images, biological sequences and biological structures. Once extracted from documents through a series of automated analytic processes, science objects are indexed for instant recall. As a result, fast and easy scientific searches are no longer restricted to text queries. Paradigm Scientific Search enables scientists to simply paste science objects into a search box to retrieve near-instant results.

Paradigm Scientific Search offers near-real-time updating and secure access to information residing in commonly used science-based organization sources including Waters Empower^® 3 Chromatography Software and NuGenesis^®8 Featuring Laboratory Execution (LE) Technologies data management and workflow solution. Incremental indexing ensures that content changes or additions are immediately reflected in search results. Advanced security trimming ensures that users only see the results they are allowed to see.

For more information: www.waters.com/paradigm

Waters Releases New Products in the Analytical Standards and Reagents Portfolio

Waters introduced Quality Control Reference Materials (QCRMs) and Certified Containers to the Analytical Standards and Reagents product group. Specifically designed for Waters instruments, QCRMs are the simplest and fastest way to understand a chromatography or MS system's health while ensuring repeatable performances. Waters Certified Containers for solvents and mobile phases are uniquely processed and treated to prevent extraneous peaks and baseline noise.

"We added Analytical Standards and Reagents to Waters' competency because they improve the accuracy of measurements. QCRMs and Certified Containers are another significant and innovative step in that direction. By integrating these products, our customers can see improved data acceptance. Furthermore, by eliminating the need to mix and formulate standards and the unknown quality of mobile phase and solvent containers, our customers will have more time for scientific problem solving," said Mike Yelle, Vice President, Consumable Business Unit for the Waters Division.

Waters is committed to laboratories by providing an end-to-end solution — from instruments to consumables to support services. Analytical Standards and Reagents can be seamlessly integrated into the analytical process, providing reliable results from all Waters columns brands. QCRMs and Certified Containers do all this while giving one confidence in the health of their system and increasing productivity by reducing repeat runs.

For more information: www.waters.com/QCRM

Waters Updates Alliance HPLC Designs Without Impacting Established Validated Methods

Based on customer demand Waters Corporation today announced improvements to the WatersAlliance HPLC System. The updated system will maintain key Alliance performance specifications and control algorithms to ensure that analysts can seamlessly replicate their existing methods.

"The Alliance HPLC System has been the benchmark for HPLC in the laboratory for nearly two decades. Because of its dependability, high quality and flexible operation, tens of thousands of these systems are used every day to run methods varying from USP monographs to polymer analyses," said Ian King, Vice President of Separation Technologies for the Waters Division. "Since its introduction, the Alliance HPLC System has been continually enhanced accommodating an enormous range of separation challenges. Waters will continue its commitment to upgrading the Alliance HPLC System with the assurance that any changes will not affect established, validated HPLC methods."

Beyond updated electronics and user interface, the Alliance HPLC system is ideally suited to help scientists enhance their HPLC methodologies through the use of Waters eXtended Performance [XP], 2.5 micron columns. These columns belong to Waters' platform of scalable particle size chemistries, which includes our patented surface charged column chemistries, which due to their wide selectivity range can seamlessly reproduce existing HPLC methods and simultaneously provide a pathway to UPLC^® compatibility for the future. Waters' HPLC to UPLC method transferability strategy differentiates us from other competitors.

For more information visit: www.waters.com/hplc

Additional Waters Products/Announcements at Pittcon

Waters unveiled mobile access and new laboratory analytics enhancements to its class-leading Empower 3 Chromatography Data Software. These improvements are designed to ensure scientists have wireless flexibility and can assess meaningful performance metrics regarding their laboratories.
Waters and DANI Instruments today announced that Waters EmpowerChromatography Data Software now provides control for DANI Headspace and Gas Chromatography instruments. Through this partnership, customers will now be able to take advantage of the full potential of both companies.
The Waters Prep 150 LC System is a fit-for-purpose preparative chromatography system designed to isolate target compounds from crude mixtures synthesized in the laboratory or extracted from natural sources during initial purification processes.

About Waters Corporation (www.waters.com)

For more than 50 years, Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) has created business advantages for laboratory-dependent organizations by delivering practical and sustainable innovation to enable significant advancements in such areas as healthcare delivery, environmental management, food safety, and water quality worldwide.

Pioneering a connected portfolio of separations science, laboratory information management, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis, Waters technology breakthroughs and laboratory solutions provide an enduring platform for customer success.

With revenue of $1.84 billion in 2012, Waters is driving scientific discovery and operational excellence for customers worldwide.

Waters, UPC², ACQUITY, NuGenesis, UPLC, Advanced Polymer Chromatography, Alliance, Empower and Paradigm are trademarks of Waters Corporation.

SOURCE Waters Corporation