HTC-19 Update: The Power of The Hyphen

Geraint Morgan from the University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom, delivered a keynote titled New Dimensions in Aroma Profiling of Distilled Spirits and Food Flavourings. Morgan outlined how the chemical complexity of distilled spirits and food flavourings — shaped by fermentation, distillation, maturation, and ingredient selection — demands analytical approaches capable of resolving hundreds of co-occurring volatile organic compounds. His group's platform centres on comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography–mass spectrometry coupled with solid phase microextraction, a combination that substantially extends peak capacity and sensitivity beyond conventional one-dimensional GC–MS by adding a second orthogonal separation dimension. This enhanced resolving power allows characterisation of a broader range of compound classes including esters, phenols, aldehydes, lactones, and heterocycles, many of which contribute to sensory character at trace concentrations. Applied in collaboration with industry partners to a range of spirits including whisky, rum, gin, and tequila as well as commercial food flavourings, the workflow was shown to support both product characterisation and classification. Morgan also described how contemprary software packages facilitate identification of the most discriminatory chemical species across sample classes, offering producers a structured basis for evaluating the sensory consequences of changes to ingredients or manufacturing processes.

Vincent Basham of BP Castrol, United Kingdom, presented work titled Chemical Analysis of Additives Included in Fully Formulated Oils Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry. Basham described fully formulated oils as chemically intricate petrochemical products in which the additive package is carefully controlled to fit a defined functional role, making compositional characterisation important across the petroleum, automotive, and engineering sectors. The presented method uses reversed-phase HPLC coupled to an LTQ Orbitrap XL instrument operating in both positive- and negative-ion electrospray ionisation modes, with data-dependent tandem mass spectrometry acquisition. Sample preparation was deliberately minimal, limited to dilution, and the complete workflow runs in under ten minutes. Across a range of fully formulated oil samples, the method successfully characterised antioxidant, detergent, and antiwear additive chemistries, and also allowed detection of degradation products in used oil samples. Basham proposed that the approach is well suited to quality control, suspected counterfeit investigation, and degradation monitoring applications.

Ruth Godfrey of Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom, gave a presentation titled Advancing Greener Analytical Science: Sustainable GC-VUV Approaches for Modern Measurement Challenges. Godfrey framed the talk around the growing pressure on analytical laboratories to reduce their environmental footprint, arguing that consolidating multi-method and multi-instrument workflows into single integrated platforms offers a practical route toward more resource-efficient practice. Her group's work centres on a GC-VUV platform developed with sustainability criteria in mind, targeting reductions in energy consumption and waste generation. A particular focus was placed on plastics characterisation, where the approach aims to support safer material assessment and improved recyclability within a more circular materials economy. Godfrey presented the platform as a model for how greener analytical science principles can be embedded into method development across sectors including pharmaceuticals, advanced materials, healthcare, and environmental monitoring.

Giorgia Purcaro of the University of Liège, Gembloux, Belgium, presented a talk titled Exploit the Power of LC Selectivity to Enhance GC×GC Characterization of Complex Mixtures Using Hyphenated Techniques. Purcaro traced the history of LC-GC hyphenation from its first demonstration in 1980 through periods of limited uptake and even commercial discontinuation, contrasting this trajectory with the rapid adoption of comprehensive two-dimensional GC following its introduction in 1991. She argued that renewed regulatory interest — particularly around the determination of mineral oil hydrocarbons in food, where LC fractionation is now a standard preparative step for isolating saturated and aromatic hydrocarbon fractions prior to GC or GC×GC analysis — has created an opportunity to reassess the value of LC pre-fractionation more broadly. By reducing sample complexity and mitigating column overload before the comprehensive separation stage, LC fractionation enhances resolving power, lowers quantification uncertainty, and enables targeted investigation of chemically defined fractions. Purcaro also presented investigations into less commonly evaluated LC stationary phases, examining how column selectivity choices influence the quality and reliability of subsequent characterisation.

John Langley of the University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom, closed the session with a presentation titled Beyond the Library Hit and the Role of Accurate Mass Measurement in Structural Interpretation in Non-Targeted Screening. Langley examined the limitations of library-based compound identification in non-targeted screening workflows, stressing that a library match — however strong — does not by itself constitute a confirmed identification. He described the conditions under which low-resolution electron ionisation libraries perform reliably, noting that the inherent reproducibility of EI fragmentation underpins their utility, but that spectral quality degradation, overloading, contamination, or the simple absence of a reference entry can each undermine matching confidence. Langley positioned accurate mass measurement as a valuable additional layer of evidence rather than a definitive solution, arguing that confident structural interpretation requires the convergence of fragment ion analysis, chromatographic retention behaviour, isotopic pattern assessment, and chemical plausibility reasoning. Practical examples were used to illustrate how this integrated interpretive approach improves identification confidence for both known and previously uncharacterised compounds.