Top 13 Articles of 2013

Everyone loves a list. At least, the LCGC editorial team does! LCGC’s biggest stories of the year show just how varied the world of chromatography is. From Excel modeling to evaluating a calibration curve, from trends in sample preparation to poor resolution and sample recovery in UHPLC — these popular pieces stand for their technical know-how, unique insight, and perspective.

1. Perspectives in Modern HPLC: Myths in Ultrahigh-Pressure Liquid Chromatography
Michael Dong addressed a number of popular myths or half-truths in UHPLC, providing data and reasoning that contradicts some of these commonly held beliefs.

2. LC Troubleshooting: What's the Problem with the LLOQ? — A Case Study
LC Troubleshooting Editor John W. Dolan discussed how to evaluate a calibration curve and calculate the lower limit of quantification.

3. MS — The Practical Art: Mass Spectrometry for Natural Products Research: Challenges, Pitfalls, and Opportunities
Correlating biological activity with chemical composition is the holy grail of natural product chemists. Nadia B. Cech posed the question: Is mass spectrometry the right tool for this challenge?

4. Column Watch: The Top 10 HPLC and UHPLC Column Myths Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines a myth as "an ill-founded belief held uncritically, especially by an interested group". Could that group be misinformed chromatographers? Ron Majors looked at the top 10 myths in HPLC and UHPLC.

5. Current Trends in Mass Spectrometry Supplement: Sample Preparation Guide for Mass Spectrometry-Based Proteomics
Sample preparation is an integral, but sometimes neglected, part of a successful mass spectrometry-based proteomics experiment. This review article summarized the successful sample preparation strategies that have led to some of the highest peptide and protein identification rates reported in the literature.

6. Sample Prep Perspectives: Trends in Sample Preparation LCGC readers were asked to participate in a survey on sample preparation techniques and methodology, and the results were compared to a similar survey carried out a decade before. The current trends and future paths were presented here.

7. Recent Developments in HPLC and UHPLC Supplement: Methods for Changing Peak Resolution in HPLC: Advantages and Limitations
Almost everyone who develops HPLC methods has produced methods that fail to separate important components of a mixture. This article presented useful approaches for the resolution of overlapping and superimposed peaks in HPLC.

8. Perspectives in Modern HPLC: HPLC Systems and Modules Introduced at Pittcon 2013: A Brief Review
The first instalment of the Perspectives in Modern HPLC column highlighted some of the new HPLC systems, accessories, and related technology introduced at Pittcon 2013.

9. Technical Article: How Reversed-Phase Liquid Chromatography Works
This tutorial on reversed-phase LC explained the role of solvent, chain conformation, solute position, and retention dynamics.
"Simply [an] excellent tutorial" — LCGC Facebook Follower

10. Pharmaceutical Supplement: Advances in Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography for Pharmaceutical Analysis
This article discussed the advantages and limitations of HILIC in a variety of practical applications in the pharmaceutical industry.

11. The LCGC Blog: An Excel Tutorial for Modeling Chromatographic Separations
Chromatography can be approximated by a series of equilibrium events between the mobile phase and stationary phase. LCGC Blog editor Kevin Schug discussed an exceptional spreadsheet macro written by an undergraduate researcher that helps users visualize the development of chromatographic separations.

12. IC Supplement: Ion Chromatography Yesterday and Today: Detection
A look at the current status of detection in ion chromatography, focusing on the most popular detectors in IC: the conductivity detector and the charge detector.
Conductivity detection, including the capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection, was discussed. Charge detectors developed in the author's laboratory were shown to complement conductivity detectors.

13. The Column: Contributing Factors to Poor Resolution and Sample Recovery in UHPLC
Achieving a high quality sample separation is critical to the success of UHPLC analyses. This article addressed the numerous practical factors that must be considered to achieve this.

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