Innovative lab automation for residues’ and contaminants analysis

A new era of food & feed testing

April 2025. Eurofins WEJ Contaminants in Hamburg is setting new standards in the analysis of residues and contaminants in food and feed with its new robotic system Robi III. The fully automated sample preparation robot offers flexible analytical capabilities for the analysis of mycotoxins and plant toxins, veterinary drug residues and organic contaminants. The development of Robi III was enabled by several years of close cooperation between Eurofins analytical experts and the automation specialists at Elbatron.

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Get your own impression of Robi III:

Watch the film and see in fast motion how Robi III was built. Find out how it benefits and supports our employees. Convince yourself of its performance and precision.

Capabilities of Robi III

Robi III contains various common laboratory devices such as extraction modules, pipetting modules and a centrifuge. With its 3 robotic arms, Robi III can operate these modules individually for each sample and perform the respective method-specific laboratory process steps. These include:

Solid/liquid extractions
Salt-assisted solid/liquid extractions
Addition of standards (up to 48 different cooled standards applicable)
Centrifugation
Filtration and dilution
Evaporation and dissolution
Cooled storage of finished extracts
Waste separation

With its 24/7 availability, Robi III can prepare up to 450 samples per day from the weighed-in sample to the ready-to-measure vial. 60 methods in the area of mycotoxins and plant toxins, veterinary drug residues and organic contaminants will be validated making Robi III extremely versatile.

With Robi III Eurofins also sets new standards for the work of laboratory technicians. Instead of performing repetitive laboratory tasks, employees will be able to work in a high-tech laboratory environment and dedicate themselves to exciting development tasks.

Quality & Benefits for Customers

To ensure the consistently high Eurofins quality standards, Robi III has undergone various controls and release stages. A complex Factory Acceptance Test at Elbatron was the first milestone. After its transport to the Eurofins Campus in Hamburg, countless tests of all process steps were carried out before the Site Acceptance Tests (SAT) were completed under real laboratory conditions.

Each of the 60 methods will be transferred to the automation and validated to ensure the following benefits for customers:

Flexibility of laboratory capacity
High reproducibility and precision
Low error rate

The robot family at Eurofins WEJ Contaminants

With the start of operation, Robi III joins the robot family of Eurofins WEJ Contaminants. Robi III together with its robotic-brother Robi II (already in operation since 2018) have a combined capacity of 800-900 samples per day for the analysis of mycotoxins, organic contaminants and veterinary drug residues.

The next member of the robot family is already being eagerly awaited: The Blade Runner was delivered in April, and when it goes into operation later in 2025, it will add the automated metal and element analysis, including sample digestion and ICP-MS analysis, to the automated laboratory portfolio.

Do you have any questions about our automation solutions?

Do you have questions about our robots or would you like to use our analytical services? Please contact your personal account manager or our R&D expert Mareike Rathke directly.