Automated Chemical Crystallography System Wins Prestigious R&d 100 Award

Bruker AXS recently announced that its SMART X2S automated chemical X-ray crystallography system has been awarded a R&D 100 award, recognising it as one of the 100 most technologically significant products introduced in the past year. The R&D 100 Award winners are selected by an independent panel of judges and the editors of R&D Magazine.

The SMART X2S for the first time allows inorganic and organic chemists to produce atomic resolution, 3D molecular structures in their own laboratories quickly and easily at the touch of a button. The SMART X2S takes small molecule structure determination to the next level of convenience by automating the previously difficult aspects of X-ray structure determination, from sample loading and alignment through data collection all the way to the mathematical structure solution, structure verification and report generation.

With its small footprint, a weight of less than 150kg and a requirement of only 0.5 kW of standard single-phase AC power, the benchtop SMART X2S can be installed easily in any academic or industrial chemistry laboratory. The system is air cooled and easily moveable.

The Analytical and Biological Chemistry Research Facility (ABCRF) at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland, is looking forward to the arrival of the Bruker SMART X2S, adding significant new capability in the characterisation of the solid state structure of pharmaceutical materials.

Prof. Anita Maguire, Director of the ABCRF, highlighted the strategic opportunity presented by securing the new SMART X2S system, which will enable hands-on routine access to X-ray crystallography to a large and diverse team of researchers focused on synthetic inorganic, organic, medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry, thereby enabling them to secure structural data on their compounds much more rapidly than would be possible through a traditional service provided by a dedicated X-ray crystallographer.

Dr. Simon Lawrence, X-ray crystallography in UCC, stated that for the first time, the SMART X2S allows undergraduate students hands-on access to X-ray crystallography, thereby demystifying this technique and bringing it to the fore as a key analytical tool.