Recently, one of my colleagues from the UK emailed a link to a resource that should be helpful to chromatographers, both new to chromatography and experienced in chromatography: Guide to Sample Preparation (link to registration page to order the poster; a hard copy of the poster will be mailed to you. You can also click the image and it will take you to the registration page.). You can hang this complementary poster in your lab or office for quick and handy references on how to deal with samples.

Did you know the main ways that humans ingest toxic polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) (link to Wikipedia page) is through food and by inhaling indoor air and house dust? Last year, the NIEHS released a study on PBDEs that found "toddlers have a significant amount of exposure to PBDEs through house dust." (Link to story on NIH site.)

Many times our experts are asked by chemists and researchers if chromatography vials and closures can be re-used after an appropriate cleaning using laboratory dishwashers intended for the washing of lab glassware. To address this question, which turns out to be really important, two of our experts in the United States and the UK conducted a research study and presented the results in a technical note presented in this blog post.

Do you know about the Anthropocene era? It is the current geologic era and is considered to be an era in which humans have made a significant impact on the Earth's ecosystem. While some scientists believe it to have begun with the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, other scientists are arguing for it to have begun with the beginning of agriculture and the Neolithic age, some 14,000 years ago. (Source: Wikipedia page on Anthropocene)

After the fairly recent blog post on the use of ion chromatography for the analysis of beer quality, it initially seemed a bit soon to be blogging another application for beer but upon reflection I thought this was a great application to share as you will find out in this post.

In the recent months, many studies have been released linking air pollution to not just negative health benefits, such as this one linking air pollution to low birth weight (link to news story), but also its impact on the economy as in this story from China in which Chinese experts are warning heavy pollution in China could may make economy splutter (link to news story). It got me wondering about the air pollution in the work environment and whether people considered the air we breathe at work as safe.

Did you know that scientists have their own Olympics? Well, Method Development Olympics in small molecule analysis for sure! (To participate, sign up by April 15 and then be prepared to apply your own method development to an analytical problem defined by the conference organizing committee.)

There are a lot of regulations around the world that require soils and waters not be contaminated. I, for one, am glad for that.  Building materials are also important to not be contaminated because we do spend a significant amount of time in some type of building. All of us that have been analyzing for PAHs, PCBs and organochlorine pesticides have used gas chromatographs for detection, ok maybe it’s only us that have been in the lab for 20 plus years (I still do not consider myself old).  I know there are still a large number of GCs doing this type of work, there are also a large number of GC-MS systems analyzing for these compounds.  Moving from GC to GC-MS does give some advantages.  We got more specific, using both retention time and mass spectra to identify compounds. This made it easier to detect and quantitate lower levels in matrix. Now, we take that a step further.  GC-MS/MS triple quadrupoles allow for even lower detection limits in matrix through the use of even greater selectivity with selected reaction monitoring.  In the case of PAHs, PCBs, and OCPs we are also able to combine three different methods into one, decreasing the amount of time of analysis for all.

This is my first blog post for 2013.  You will not have noticed this but it took two times to type the correct year, apparently my fingers are still stuck on 2012.  Let’s talk about doing more with less in the gas chromatography laboratory in 2013. Over the past years we have come to realize that everything and everyone in the lab must be able to do more with less.  This does not mean that we need to work all day every day. This means that we all need to be flexible to meet all challenges as they come in. Gas chromatographs in the past have been systems that are purchased in one configuration and were difficult to change. If you didn’t have the time or engineering resources it was impossible to change. During this webinar you will discover how a GC can be reconfigured to meet the always changing needs of the laboratory.

As a result of the growing concerns over the health risks from constant exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs), the Stockholm Convention, a global treaty aimed at protecting human health from POPs, has banned the production of persistent toxic industrial chemicals, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). The banning of these chemicals has led to the need for not just analytical methods that can quantify the accumulation of PBDEs at low levels in ambient dust but also streamline the workflows as the extraction of these chemicals from solid and semisolid matrices can be a very laborious and time-consuming task.