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Polymer Laboratories, now a part of Varian, Inc., has published an application note on Universal quantification using ELS detection and real-time response control. The ability of the Varian 385-LC to overcome solvent enhancement effects during gradient elution makes it ideal for quantifying unknown compounds. This application note shows that combined with the improved sensitivity to semi-volatile compounds at sub-ambient temperature, the Varian ELSD offers a simple and accurate solution to universal quantification.

Market Trends and Analysis: Water Analysis and Testing Glenn Cudiamat reports on the vast water analysis market and looks at worldwide demand for laboratory separation techniques within the water testing industry. Separation of Complex Peptide Samples Using Optimized Column Technology and 1D-LC Conditions Sebastiaan Eeltink, Bas Dolman, Karsten Dekker, Fraser McLeod and Remco Swart Diastereoselective Separation of Fenvalerate by Supercritical Fluid Chromatography with Tandem Columns Jennifer Lefler and Rui Chen News All the news for September 2008. Incognito: Turn On, Tune In, Outsource… With many laboratories closing or downsizing in preference for outsourcing work to offshore territories, Incognito highlights some of the shortfalls to be expected. Q&Q The Column's Alasdair Matheson spoke to Rohan Thakur from thermo Fisher Scientific about the company's rationale behind developing the TSQ Vantage — a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer — for high sensitivity bioanalysis.

Micellar liquid chromatography (MLC) is a reversed-phase liquid chromatographic mode with a solution of surfactant forming micelles as the mobile phase. The interaction of solutes with the stationary phase coated with surfactant monomers, combined with the increased solubilization capability of micelles, have profound implications with regard to retention, selectivity and efficiency. Practical steps that a chromatographer involved in MLC should consider when developing an analytical procedure are described, including mobile phase preparation, column conditioning and cleaning.

Agilent Technologies (Santa Clara, California) and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS, Sydney, Australia) have established the UTS Elemental Bio-Imaging Facility to study trace metals and other elements in tissue and their effects on health.

They say that timing is everything, and though this saying may have originally been applied to Broadway and Vaudeville in the early twentieth century, it is just as true when it comes to the field of modern-day separation science. For this September issue of The Application Notebook should be reaching our audience of analytical chemists, lab managers, and other industry professionals just as the busiest time of the year ramps up in the world of chromatography.

Torion Technologies, Inc. (American Fork, Utah), a manufacturer of automated miniaturized, hand-portable GC and toroidal ion trap mass spectrometry (TMS) technology, has announced a partnership with Smiths Detection (Danbury,Connecticut), part of the global technology business, Smiths Group, and a technology developer and manufacturer of sensors that detect and identify explosives, chemical and biological agents, weapons, and contraband.

The Pittsburgh Conference (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) has announced that George M. Whitesides, the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts), will be the Plenary Speaker at Pittcon 2009 on March 8, 2009.

Thermo Fisher Scientific (Waltham, Massachusetts) has received a Microsoft Corporation 2008 Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Innovation Award in the Discovery and Product Innovation category.

Researchers from Sao Cristovao and Salvador, Brazil employed a solid-phase microextraction (SPME-headspace gas chromatography (GC) method to analyze benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) in water released from a waste treatment plant.

Penn State researchers have discovered that pesticide build-up could lead to poor honey bee health. The researchers analyzed pollen, brood, adult bees, and wax samples. The results show unprecedented levels of fluvalinate and coumaphos - pesticides used in the hives to combat varroa mites - in all comb and foundation wax samples. They also found lower levels of 70 other pesticides and metabolites of those pesticides in pollen and bees.

Researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine and University of Vienna (Vienna, Austria) developed a selective method for analyzing a compound in corn, deoxynivalenol, based on immuno-ultrafiltration.

Two scientists based in Taiwan have combined dynamic liquid phase extraction with nanoscale volumes for GC-MS analysis, scaling down the corresponding microscale procedure to what they claim is "the smallest amount of extraction phase and sample solution in [the] GC-MS."

Chemists from Normal University and Wuhan University (both Wuhan, China) used an improved liquid-liquid-liquid microextraction method in the analysis of four phenolic compounds in water.

Scientists from North Carolina State University (Raleigh, North Carolina) and Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) have used Thermo Fisher Scientific (San Jose, California) LTQ linear ion trap and LTQ Orbitrap XL mass spectrometers to extract and sequence tiny pieces of collagen protein from a dinosaur and a mastodon.

A group of researchers at the University of Nevada-Reno (Reno, Nevada), led by Dr. Jimi Francis, conducted a study, "Comparative Analysis of Nutrients in Baby Milk Using Varied Milk Delivery Systems." The study measured the level of nutrient loss using HPLC methods during simulated baby bottle feedings and has found that some bottle types resulted in significant loss of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) during a typical 20-min feeding.

Thermo Fisher Scientific (Waltham, Massachusetts) announced that it had received five Scientific Computing 2008 Readers’ Choice awards for software in four categories: laboratory information management systems (LIMS), bioinformatics, chromatography, and spectroscopy.

Chromatide has announced a partnership with Kromasil, a brand of Akzo Nobel, to develop improved chromatography media for chiral purification.

Seegene, Inc. (Rockville, Maryland) and Shimadzu Corporation (Columbia, Maryland) announced that they had formed a strategic partnership to combine Seegene's Seeplex multipathogen tests with Shimadzu's MultiNA high-speed electrophoresis system.

The College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia) unveiled its Integrated Science Center for the fall semester.

Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (Leipzig, Germany) used the Chemcatcher aquatic passive sampling device to collect samples from a 1-day pulse contamination with the pesticide thiacloprid.

Scientists from the USDA';s Eastern Regional Research Center (Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania) analyzed 11 beta-lactam antibiotics in bovine kidney using a sample preparation method consisting of an acetonitrile-water extraction followed by a dispersive solid-phase extraction with a C18 sorbent, extract concentration, and filtration with syringeless filter vials.

Micellar liquid chromatography (MLC) is a reversed-phase liquid chromatographic mode with a solution of surfactant forming micelles as the mobile phase. The interaction of solutes with the stationary phase coated with surfactant monomers, combined with the increased solubilization capability of micelles, have profound implications with regard to retention, selectivity and efficiency. Practical steps that a chromatographer involved in MLC should consider when developing an analytical procedure are described, including mobile phase preparation, column conditioning and cleaning.

Scientists from Kangwon National University in South Korea undertook a comprehensive study to identify the types of compounds in vehicle AC unit emissions, using gas chromatography with four types of detection: olfactometry, flame ionisation detection (FID), mass spectrometry (MS) and atomic emission detection (AED). It was conducted on a lab-scale model unit that contained a rogue AC evaporator from a vehicle that was associated with unpleasant odours and had only 4000 km on the clock.

Researchers from the Monell Center (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) used GC-MS techniques to sample air above basal cell tumors and found a different profile of chemical compounds compared to the skin in healthy people. Human skin has many airborne chemical molecules known as VOCs, many of which have odors.

Scientists from Jacobs University (Bremen, Germany) used orthogonal proteomic methods to study the behavior of proteins in ion-exchange chromatography.

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Dilute formic acid solutions in methanol were found to decline in acid content with time, the extent of the decline depending upon the initial amount of water present in these solutions. The effect of the formic acid concentration change upon the separation of peptides using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is examined briefly.

When water samples are extracted and analyzed for PAH's, many methods require the sample to be filtered to remove particulate matter. This helps reduce SPE cartridges 'plugging' or emulsions forming, as can happen with conventional liquid-liquid extraction. But, filtration of the suspended particulate matter may reduce the effectiveness of the extraction for PAHs. Therefore, to determine the actual concentration of PAHs, the "whole" watersample, with the suspended particulate matter, needs to be processed. In this study, SPE using a 47mm "disk" format, with an automated extractor system, is proven as a successful, reproducible, analytical extraction method for particulate laden water samples for PAHs.