Chemical Applications of a Programmable Image Acquisition System

摘要

Many important chemical techniques rely on image analysis, from paper and thin-layer chromatography, to dyetreated electrophoresis gels, to kinetic systems involving changes in clors and patterns. Spectrophotometry and densitometry are commonly used to quantify such images and commercial instrumentation is often available for aparticular methods. This paper describes a programmable imaging system that is currently used in our organic and physical chemistry courses for thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and kinetics measurements. It has also been used in student research projects in analytical chemistry and as a densitiometer in biochemistry. Examples from well plate measurements, fluorescence TLC analyses, gel electrophoresis, and kinetics are presented to illustrate the potential of this flexible system. In addition to these illustrations, the system provides many opportunities for student projects in further software developments and applications. For example, the camera and software options are suitable for the analysis of still or time-dependent images in optical microscopy, and the software is suitable for image processing in a large range of standard formats.