Smarter vacuum systems release scientists from manual guesswork

Vacuum plays a critical role in everyday evaporation, filtration, and drying workflows, yet many laboratories still rely on systems that deliver far less precision than their science demands. Mike Mesteller, Product Manager, Vacuum at BRANDTECH^® Scientific, explains how the VACUUBRAND^® VACUU·SELECT^® vacuum controller and VARIO Technology are changing what researchers should expect from their vacuum systems, and what that means for the scientists who depend on them.

Picture a scientist at a rotary evaporator, one hand on a venting valve, watching for the first sign that the solvent is about to boil over. It is a common scene in chemistry and research labs, and according to Mesteller, it is also a symptom of a much wider problem. "A vacuum is one of those tools that it's not a one-size-fits-all application," he says. "Being able to harness and accurately administer that vacuum and have it do what they need it to do is really critical."

For most scientists, controlling a vacuum still means turning a valve by hand and relying on experience and judgment to get it right. When it goes wrong on a rotary evaporator, it goes wrong fast. Mesteller describes it as a runaway train scenario, with uncontrolled boiling, bumping, ruined samples, and a mess that contaminates equipment and derails the entire workflow. And as he explains, it rarely stops there. One inefficiency cascades into the next, creating a domino effect that runs all the way down the process line.

Transforming a vacuum from a tool into a smart lab partner

Mesteller’s go-to analogy is cruise control on a car. Set a speed, and leave the engine to do the work – accelerating on a hill, backing off on a descent, constantly adjusting without any input from the driver. "It's constantly making those adjustments," he says. The VACUU·SELECT works the same way, actively monitoring the process and responding in real time.

For evaporation, it detects the onset of boiling and adjusts before things get out of hand. In filtration, it keeps the vacuum from tearing the filter paper or triggering unwanted evaporation mid-process. In vacuum oven drying, it applies the right vacuum throughout, cutting process time without compromising the result.

"With manual control, it is really hard, borderline impossible, to achieve and maintain a fixed vacuum set point," Mesteller explains. "Most vacuum applications are dynamic applications. They're constantly changing." The VACUU·SELECT handles all of that automatically. "You're removing the human element and errors that come with that," he says. "You can really get repeatable, accurate results for what it is that you're trying to do."

Freeing up scientists to focus on the science

Scientists do not go into research to spend hours watching a valve. "Nobody wants to be the person sitting and monitoring vent valves for two hours," Mesteller says. "It lets that user be used somewhere else in a better way."

Labs that have made the switch notice it quickly. "They're able to focus more time on the science without having to worry about the vacuum that is being applied to it," Mesteller says. The benefits run further too, "removing the inefficiencies early saves them time down the line," he adds, with fewer ruined samples, less rework, and fewer problems to unpick later in the process.

Faster drying and a quieter lab

Many labs run vacuum drying ovens overnight simply because they have to, running fixed 12-hour protocols with safety margins built in, started before everyone goes home. The VACUU·SELECT can cut those cycles significantly, applying the right vacuum throughout so the process finishes when it is actually done rather than running to an arbitrary end time. However, the benefit users mention most is not the time saving, it is the quiet. This is because the VACUU·SELECT runs VARIO pumps at a fraction of its full speed for most of the cycle, "it almost makes that pump completely silent, and the process is still going," Mesteller says. In a lab already filled with the persistent hum of fume hoods, chillers, and other equipment running all day, taking one of those out of the equation makes a difference.

Data logging, protocol sharing, and ease of use

The VACUU·SELECT logs real-time vacuum data throughout every process, building a pressure curve that captures exactly what the vacuum was doing at each point in the run. "If you know what your vacuum was doing at any given time that you were working a process, and if you got the result you wanted, being able to view that pressure curve allows you to actually see and replicate what happened," Mesteller explains. Validated protocols can be saved to a USB drive and transferred to other controllers or scaled up to production systems without starting from scratch.

The controller is designed to be as straightforward to use as the rest of the system. A detachable glass touchscreen, operable with gloves on, can be positioned wherever is most practical, including outside a fume hood or base cabinet. Pre-defined procedures cover the most common applications, and building custom protocols is, as Mesteller puts it, as simple as moving an app on a phone. "We've made it so that it truly becomes a plug-and-play tool," he says. "Plug it in, turn it on, it will do what you need it to do."

Across evaporation, filtration, drying, and beyond, the case Mesteller makes is consistent, where manual vacuum control asks scientists to be both researcher and technician at once, monitoring, adjusting, and compensating for a process that should be running itself. That is exactly what the VACUU·SELECT and VARIO Technology are designed to change, giving researchers their attention back, while making their results more consistent, and quietly removing a source of error that most labs had simply learned to live with.