New Tabletop Ultracentrifuge Suitable for Biosafety Hood Use

Biotech and other life science research laboratories now have available a new tabletop ultracentrifuge that provides the separation capabilities of free standing centrifuges while being compact enough to fit within a standard biosafety hood.

Beckman Coulter Life Sciences (Brea, CA, USA) recently introduced the Optima MAX-TL tabletop ultracentrifuge. This instrument is fully compatible with Beckman Coulter’s TL labware and fixed-angle, swinging bucket, and unique near-vertical tube (NVT) rotors. Operators have the option of inputting multiple programs of up to five steps each using an easily navigated, full-color LCD touch-screen accessible in nine languages: English, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Italian, Russian, Portuguese and Chinese (simplified). Context-sensitive onscreen help is available in multiple native languages.


The Optima MAX-TL is capable of reaching a maximum speed of 120,000 rpm and maximum rcf [relative centrifugal force] of 657,000 x g. Temperatures in the centrifuge can be set from 0 to 40 degrees Celsius in one degree Celsius increments. The instrument operates in ambient temperatures from 15 to 35 degrees Celsius.

With its compact size allowing the instrument to be used inside biosafety or laminar flow hoods, the Optima MAX-TL should prove to be an excellent tool for applications such as separation of subcellular particles, separation of viruses and viral particles, rate-zonal separation of proteins in sucrose gradient, separation of lipoproteins, pelleting of RNA through a cesium chloride gradient, isopycnic separation of plasmid DNA, and others.

“The Optima MAX-TL tabletop is an instrument for those working with smaller sample sizes and fills out our best-in-class line of ultracentrifuges,” said Patrick O’Donnell, senior global manager of marketing at Beckman Coulter. “The unit’s features and user-friendly qualities will make it of great service to researchers.”

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Beckman Coulter Life Sciences