Perkin-Elmer TITAN MPS, User Manual

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76
Operation
Table 5-1. Details of the method temperature program table
Column Column Description Guidelines
Step # The program step # Steps are sequentially executed
Temperature The target temperature of
the program step (the
temperature that the oven
will bring the samples to). The higher the temperature, the
quicker the digestion will
complete, but the higher the
resulting pressure. Use caution
here as very high temperatures
have the ability to damage the
vessels.
Pressure The max pressure the
sample will be allowed to
reach for the program
step before the system
reduces power. It is recommended to set the max
approximately 10 bar below the
maximum working pressure of
the vessel. This allows a margin
of pressure overhead should the
digestion evolve more gas than
expected.
Ramp The time (in minutes) the
system should take to
reach the target
temperature for the
program step. Very aggressive (short) ramp
times can cause exothermic
reactions to proceed very rapidly
and cause a rupture disc release
and will limit the ability of the
Titan MPS to moderate this
effect.
Time The time (in minutes) the
system should remain at
the target temperature for
the program step. Longer times allow the reagents
to completely digest the sample.
The goal is to find a balance
between digestion speed and
digestion quality.
Power The maximum
microwave power (in
percent) that the system
can provide for the
program step. In most cases, this can be set to
99% for each active step,
allowing DTC and DPC to
control power modulation.