The electronic revolution has made a lot of things in the Chemistry laboratory easier in the last 50 years. From pocket calculators to high throughput robotic synthesizers, technology has benefited chemists in many ways. However, it has largely failed to simplify some of the more tedious chores of the lab – detailed note taking and the write up of those experiment notes into a lab report.

Why is this so? There are several contributing factors. Firstly, a chemistry experiment typically involves activities at many locations in the laboratory. A chemist might select reagents from a storage cabinet or refrigerator, weigh chemicals at a balance, react them in a fume hood, analyze reaction aliquots with an HPLC and purify the product on the bench top – and gather data at each of these locations. Computers have only recently become sufficiently mobile that they could really help in environments like the lab. Secondly, simple note-taking is only half the battle. Laboratory notes, whether in electronic form, in notebooks, or on paper pads or hood sashes, must then be collected and assembled into a lab writeup that can be used in a permanent record, report or journal article

Fortunately, the latest mobile computers have power, small size, and touch-sensitive screens that a few years ago were limited to science fiction. The future is now, and to this amazing hardware we have added software built with a chemist in mind to create the first complete Digital Laboratory Assistant. Chemistry Labacus^® makes taking notes easy and automatically converts those notes into an experiment write up, saving time and effort in both the lab and the office.

Click here to learn more about the Chemistry Labacus ^® mobile Digital Lab Assistant