Liquid Chromatography (LC/HPLC)

Latest News


Modern Liquid Chromatography was the hot topic of the day in a standing room only technical session on the third day of Pittcon 2007. Arranged by Peter W Carr (University of Minnesota) and Stephen G Weber (University of Pittsburgh), the session's favorite subject seemed to be high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

The Ancient Greeks ate sheep testicles before competitions. Contemporary athletes have designer steroids. What techniques can we use to test our athletes for banned substances?

The 2007 Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award was presented Tuesday morning to Jonathan V. Sweedler, Lycan Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.

The 2007 Ralph N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry was presented to Norman J. Dovichi, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington, on Monday afternoon at Pittcon 2007.

Attendees continue to trickle in, as snowstorms around the country continue to disrupt air travel. For those like me who thought, "Chicago in February? Hooray!"

Yesterday, Andrew Tiplerwas going nowhere fast because of airport delays. Today, he was discussing how to accelerate your gas chromatography runs.

Eight presentations on a variety of LC-MS applications were given in Session 170 on this first afternoon at Pittcon. One of the most interesting was session 170-6, "Techniques of LC-MS in Forensics Analysis." The speaker, Michael C. Zumwalt, discussed the variety of LC-MS instrumentation available to meet both qualitative and quantitative needs. Among the interesting applications he discussed were those for detecting drugs of abuse and explosives. Workplace drug testing and forensic toxicology are examples of these applications. LC-MS continues to be a rapidly growing technique, and the ways in which it can be used in forensic analysis are quite varied. Serial measurement systems are used for quantitation, while parallel systems are best for qualitative applications. Serial systems such as single quadrupole and triple quadrupole mass spectrometers are very useful for detecting drugs of abuse in oral fluids. A particular advantage noted by the speaker is the ease of sample collection, which can even be done in the field, for example, by a police officer.

Pittcon Heritage Award

Most arrived at Pittcon 2007 wet, cold, and frustrated. But a the blizzard whooping around Chicago couldn't bring David Schwartz down today when he was presented with the 2007 Pittcon Heritage Award.

Separation instrument techniques are among the most widely used technologies in the analytical instrumentation market. It spans the entire industrial and regional marketplace. The lab separations market includes chromatographic techniques like analytical and preparative HPLC, GC, IC, TLC, flash, and low pressure LC.

Each month in our Technology Forum we will feature a discussion between industry experts on various trends and issues in the chromatography field. This month's Technology Forum looks at the topic of Pittcon 2007 and the trends and issues surrounding it. Joining us for this discussion are Tom Ricci with Ricci Communications and LCGC Columnists John Dolan and John Hinshaw.