Controlling Sample Temperature during the Bead Milling Process with the BR-Cryo Cooling Unit

Bead mill technology has become a forefront in sample preparations for a variety of sample matrices. From tissues, bone, soil and microbes, bead milling is one of the quickest and most efficient ways to disrupt samples for scientific analysis. Bead mill homogenizers, such as the Omni Bead Ruptor Elite, function by vigorously shaking tubes containing dense bead material to disrupt samples. The impact between the beads and the sample reduces the sample size and creates a homogenous mixture. While bead milling is an efficient method for homogenization, for some, the addition of the bead media can be a drawback. The kinetic energy that is generated by movement of the beads within the tube and sample material increases sample temperature. In some cases heat sensitive analytes can be affected. The Omni BR-Cryo Cooling unit is designed to combat this problem. The Omni BR-Cryo dissipates this heat by passing cold air (-100 °C to -50 °C) into the Omni Bead Ruptor Elite bead mill homogenizer’s processing chamber preventing the temperature increase. Here we evaluate intratube temperature after processing on the Omni Bead Ruptor Elite coupled with the Omni BR-Cryo Cooling unit.

Figure 1: Sample temperature following bead milling at 8 m/s for increasing times with and without cooling using the Omni BR-Cryo cooling unit. Starting temperature at 21 °C