Every year, thousands of laboratories globally buy refurbished scientific equipment, enjoying the benefits of high-performance equipment at a fraction of the cost of buying them brand new.
From universities to industrial labs, from research institutions to start-ups, buying pre-used equipment is standard practice, combining reliability with cost-savings and sustainability.
We’ve built our business on serving this market, supplying instruments that have been restored to OEM standards, tested thoroughly and delivered to customers worldwide ready to perform, saving equipment from gathering dust on a lab shelf or being discarded and ending up in landfill.
And, thanks to our expert team of engineers, our reputation for supplying refurbished equipment is worldwide, with hundreds of laboratories buying high quality refurbished systems from us every year, either in the form of complete instruments or standalone modules.
Most of this work centres on liquid and gas chromatography, including HPLC, GC and GCMS systems, which can be refurbished as complete systems or as individual modules.
But what happens when we take delivery of a pre-used equipment?
And how do our customers guarantee that our equipment delivers all the precision and reliability they’d expect from a brand-new model?
Because everything we re-sell goes through the same stringent process, carried out by our trained experts at our HQ in Bedfordshire, ensuring everyone can enjoy the same peace of mind.
Everything starts with a thorough inspection upon arrival at our workshop.
Repeated use can take its toll on a piece of lab equipment, whether it’s through a hard-working motor wearing out or mechanical fatigue causing a leak or misrouting of solvents.
And so, no matter how good an instrument looks on the outside, our engineers will assess its overall condition both inside and out, checking for visible damage, missing components or tell-tale signs of wear.
This assessment, carried out under controlled conditions with an extraordinary attention to detail, informs the refurbishment plan and ensures any issues are addressed early.
Before any detailed work takes place, the system is cleaned to remove potential contamination.
Chromatography equipment is particularly sensitive to contaminants and even small amounts can compromise results or damage the system. These contaminants might include samples, solvents, dust and air and they affect equipment in different ways.
There is also a danger that any residues of toxic chemicals or solvents can pose risk to lab personnel when the system is opened or flushed, alongside microbial contaminants from aqueous systems following their use in a bio-labs.
Our engineers ensure these hazards to the equipment and future users are eradicated by thoroughly cleaning everything before anything gets done.
Once cleaned, the system is disassembled to allow a detailed inspection of internal components.
Service consumables are replaced as standard, ensuring the system starts its next lifecycle with fresh, reliable parts.
Other components, such as pumps, autosamplers, column ovens, degassers and detectors are serviced wherever possible, but if a component is found to be faulty or cannot be restored to specification, it is removed and replaced.
This approach balances reliability with sustainability, extending the useful life of the system without compromising performance.
The system is then carefully reassembled, with our engineers checking every seal, connection and fitting along the way to ensure correct installation and leak-free operation.
Once reassembled, the system undergoes comprehensive performance testing to original manufacturer specifications, using parameters defined in OEM manuals.
This ensures the refurbished system performs in line with the standards customers expect.
For HPLC and UHPLC systems, the testing includes gradient testing, pressure and leak tests, UV intensity checks, self-tests and additional functional assessments.
For GC and GC–MS systems, our engineers run sample injections, carry out temperature and pressure checks, review tune reports, and complete full functionality testing.
They may have got everything refurbished, back into working order and fully tested, but final approval doesn’t rest with our engineers.
Instead, the test results are reviewed by our specialist service and operations managers, who sign off the system as ready for sale only once its performance has been verified.
And then the instrument or refurbished part is ready for re-sale, but not before we’ve put our money where our mouth is, with our standard warranty coverage.
All of our refurbished instruments and parts are supplied with a six-month warranty, which applies to replacement modules, boards, valves, pumps and similar reconditioned components, with installation and service support included for many UK instrument purchases.
But because not everything within a pre-used instrument can be re-used, while some systems are simply beyond repair and incapable of being refurbished. So if we decide that, during our initial assessment, a system has reached the end of the road we strive to make sure its disposal is as sustainable as possible.
Anything that might be reusable, such as a component or bodywork, are recovered for future use, while remaining parts are disposed of via an eco-friendly waste collection services.
