The vial is sent to the Receiver interfaced to the instrument which will run the analytical method requested. The Receiver positions the vial so the instrument's autosampler can aspirate sample from the vial.
A lab2lab instrument controller must be installed on the controlling PC of any analytical instrument on the lab2lab system. This is a small software applet that handles the software interfacing between lab2lab and the control software of the specific instrument. A common communication protocol is used between these controllers and the Director application, but each one is specific to a specific type of instrument. When installed they run automatically. Exceptionally, the Director application communicates directly with Bruker NMR systems, and requires the Bruker PC and software to be correctly configured.
Once the Receiver unit attached to the instrument detects the vial's arrival, the Director application then sends the associated process data e.g. the method parameters, to the Instrument Controller. Once this has been received the processing of the vial will commence. The Instrument Controller will detect when the vial can safely be returned to the Buffer and when the analytical process has successfully completed (and the results have been generated). lab2lab will then handle the vial appropriately.
Each vial is physically transported back to the Buffer as soon as possible i.e. when the sample injection phase had been completed but before the analysis has finished. This allows the next vial to be sent to the instrument's Receiver ready to start its analysis the instant the instrument completes the previous task.