FIA – Flow Injection Analysis is a microchemical technique to automate wet chemical methods. In a FIA system, a carrier solution and the chemical reagents are continuously pumped through tubes, mixing coils and finally through a flow cell in a detector. A small portion of the sample is injected into the carrier. The carrier merges with one or more reagents to produce a chemical reaction. The resulting colour change in the sample zone is measured in the detector. The time between injection and detection is typically 1 minute.
The dispersion or dilution of the sample zone is controlled by the system components, i.e. injected volume, flow rates and length and diameter of the tubing. When the dispersed sample zone reaches the flow cell of the detector neither the chemical reaction nor the dispersion process must have reached completion or a steady state. Keeping identical conditions for both samples and standards makes evaluation and quantification reproducible and precise.
FIA features the following basic advantages
Speed
Results in 1 minute
Quick start up and shut down (10 minutes)
Economy
High sample throughput
Low reagent consumption
Suitable also for smaller sample series
Simplicity
Easy to learn and operate
Pioneering the field of Flow Injection Analysis, the first FIAstar instrument based on Tecator technology was launched on the market in 1979. In 2000, the latest addition to the product line is introduced, the FOSS FIAstar 5000 system, bringing dedicated solutions to the modern laboratory's need of speed and simplicity of analytical equipment.
