Sustaining Pittcon Conversations About Green Chemistry

New Jersey Institute of Technology distinguished professor Omowunmi Sadik’s keynote Wallace H. Coulter Lecture that opened the 75th anniversary edition of the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon) provided a unifying theme for much of the 2024 expo in San Diego, California: making chemistry more sustainable for purposes of human and environmental health.

A modern green chemistry laboratory setting promotes sustainable and eco-friendly practices. Generated by AI. | Image Credit: © Anastasia - stock.adobe.com

On the final day of presentations, a session spotlighting industry leaders helped bridge the gap between their side of the science and academia. The oral session, titled “Sustainability and Regulations in the Environmental Lab” brought together Ettigounder (Samy) Ponnusamy, fellow and global manager of green chemistry for MilliporeSigma; Nora Perez, research scientist, chromatography for Indorama Ventures; Aaron Hineman, inorganic product line leader, Americas for PerkinElmer; and, in a separate location simultaneously, Steve Wesson, director of sales at Cofience.

Ponnusamy’s talk, “DOZNTM2.1 – A Quantitative Green Chemistry Evaluator for a Sustainable Future,” emphasized the 12 principles of green chemistry in much the same manner as Sadik’s keynote but did so through the lens of the DOZN web-based greener alternative scoring matrix, first launched as version 2.0 by Merck in 2017 and upgraded to 2.1 by MilliporeSigma in late 2022 (1). And while the web-based tool is a marketable product, Ponnusamy placed special attention on the 12 principles themselves, giving the audience time to focus on each one and how it fits into the full green analytical picture.

Perez made the point in her presentation, “Quantification of Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) as Impurity in Surfactants (Ethoxylates) Using Third-Order Model Performed by HPLC Accoupled to Evaporative Light Scattering Detector (HPLC-ELSD),” that polyethylene glycol (PEG) is altogether undesirable in laboratory experiments. As she explained, it is formed by homopolymerization of ethylene oxide competition as it is added to a hydrophobic initiator—traces of water in the reaction medium often spurring that formation (2). Liquid chromatography (LC) methods are most effective for PEG’s quantification, but refinement of those methods is necessary to achieve the best measurements.

An inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry method (ICP-MS) held the key to a library of product ion scans described in Hineman’s presentation, “Development of a Spectral Reaction Table Library for 78 Elements with a Variety of Reaction Gases.” Those reaction gases, Hineman said, were grouped into six color-coded periodic tables, so designed to provide clues to the scientist about reaction gas suitability, in the interest of interference correction (3).

Taken together, these three presentations—along with Wesson’s just next door—were representative of one of Pittcon 2024’s major storylines: how to influence and encourage the next generation of analytical chemists, while endeavoring to protect the world they will be continuing to explore.

References

(1) Ponnusamy, E. DOZNTM2.1 – A Quantitative Green Chemistry Evaluator for a Sustainable Future. Presented at the 75th Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, San Diego, California, February 25, 2024.

(2) Perez, N. Quantification of Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) as Impurity in Surfactants (Ethoxylates) Using Third-Order Model Performed by HPLC Accoupled to Evaporative Light Scattering Detector (HPLC-ELSD). Presented at the 75th Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, San Diego, California, February 25, 2024.

(3) Hineman, A. Development of a Spectral Reaction Table Library for 78 Elements with a Variety of Reaction Gases. Presented at the 75th Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, San Diego, California, February 25, 2024.