Sports is big business, which is why leagues and federations are desperate to keep their franchises honest. In the US, Major League Baseball (MLB) received a record $9 billion in revenues in 2014, while the National Football League took in close to $10 billion. 

Once gas chromatography (GC) separates a sample into its component parts, a detector identifies them. All detectors provide certain benefits and struggle with some limitations. Whether some feature is beneficial or detrimental, however, depends on the sample and the application.

Two cannabis testing labs from Colorado share their thoughts on how the state’s emerging recreational marijuana industry has affected them.

Greg Martin is president of Complectors Consulting (www.complectors.com), based in Pottstown, PA, which provides consulting and training in the area of pharmaceutical analytical chemistry. Mr. Martin has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and was director of pharmaceutical analytical chemistry (R&D) for a major PhRMA company for a number of years. In addition, he has volunteered for the U.S. Pharmacopeia for over 10 years, and currently serves as vice chair of the General Chapters—Physical Analysis Expert Committee and also serves on expert panels on Validation and Verification; Weights and Balances’ Residual Solvents; and Use of Enzymes for Dissolution Testing of Gelatin Capsules.

Using compressed gases in the laboratory can be dangerous if they are not handled properly. Many gases can be explosive, flammable, corrosive, and toxic. Because the gases are under high pressure in tanks and cylinders, any release of gas can spread quickly and endanger lab personnel—including the possibility of
death from explosion or asphyxiation. Less-deadly safety risks include physical injuries from mishandling tanks, especially to the hands, feet, and lower back.

Portable gas chromatography (pGC) is all about tradeoffs. Users demand value, reliability, ease of use, ergonomics, and measurement quality but with analysis limited to gases.

Working in conjunction with customer, Daimler AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific has developed an automated in-line matrix elimination technique that simplifies the determination of trace sodium in non-water-miscible liquids such as diesel, biodiesel, and regular petroleum fuels.

Thermo Fisher Scientific has developed an ion chromatography method with suppressed conductivity detection for sensitive determination of inorganic anions and carboxylic acids (fluoride, acetate, formate, mesylate, chloride, nitrate, succinate, malonate, sulfate, and oxalate) in airborne particulate matter (PM2.5).

Thermo Fisher Scientific has developed a simple, reliable and robust method for detecting dissolved gases in water using a gas chromatograph equipped with an autosampler and an electron flame ionization detector (FID).

The Pittcon 2015 Program Committee is pleased to announce the recipients of 14 prestigious awards honoring scientists who have made outstanding contributions to analytical chemistry and applied spectroscopy. Each award will be presented during a symposium at Pittcon 2015, March 8-12, 2015, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Chromatographers often need to balance the convenience of universal-use columns against the sensitivity and resolution of specialized columns. “Where labs may at one time have employed a nonpolar, all-purpose column, they now seek columns engineered for chemical families or even specific methods,” says Timothy Anderson, GC products manager at Phenomenex (Torrance, CA).

Derek Wachtel, scientist in the DMPK department at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and Mingliang Bao, PhD, senior scientist at Labstat International ULC, talk to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, regarding various issues they face with sample prep in their laboratories. They both stress that sample prep is very important and a necessary step in any analysis and with newer technologies making it easier and faster to accomplish, there should be no reason to ignore or overlook it.