Category Archives: Chromatography

Pickering Exhibits at Pittcon 2013

This year’s Pittcon was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from March 17-21, 2013.

view of philly from the museum On display were Pinnacle PCX, EluVAC, and a video of the FREESTYLE Automated Sample Preparation Instrument.  The video was a new technique for us, and it was well received.

The video in our booth was a combination of the separate videos for each module of the FREESTYLE Automated Sample Preparation Instrument. You can view the originals here (they are very informative, and we highly recommend them): FREESTYLE VIDEOS

Wendy, Mike and David enjoyed visiting with existing and future customers, as well as our distributors from around the world, including our Canadian distributor, Chromatographic Specialties.

Before the show opened, we had the opportunity to explore the city.  Philadelphia is one of our oldest cities and is full of history and landmarks. Some of this editor’s favorites include Independence Hall and the surrounding neighborhoods, and the Art Museum (see more below).  On this trip, we explored Reading Terminal Market, and sampled that famous cuisine, the Philly Cheese steak Sandwich. I’m told it is not truly a Philly Steak sandwich unless you have it with Cheez Whiz. Any type of real cheese doesn’t count. I made that mistake on my first trip to Philadelphia, and the man behind the counter let me know it!  I wasn’t about to make that mistake again:

philly cheesesteak

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is known for its amazing collection of artwork (viewed on a previous visit), but is also made famous by the scene of Sylvester Stallone running up the stairs in the movie Rocky.  Since the author of this entry happened to be training for a race, she decided that a little cold wasn’t going to stop her. So she put on her iPod (Rocky Theme playing, of course), and ran from the hotel to the top of the steps and back (total distance: about 2.8miles).

view from the bottom

wendy philly top of steps

wendy rockyOn the return to the hotel, I came across a version of the LOVE sculpture, by American Artist Robert Indiana. I always thought it was was much bigger…

love sculpture

 

For those of you interested in learning more about the sculpture, click HERE

If you’re ever in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is definitely worth a visit.

But if you can’t make the trip to Philadelphia, you could also stay home and watch Rocky…

Chromatography Quiz No. 2

Congratulations to the winners of our last newsletter’s Chromatography Quiz: Matthew Hartz, Jamie Palmer, and Keena Njoroge from Underwriters Laboratories, Sudheer Reddy from Chemtex, and Becky Canela from Environmental Laboratory Services!

two dozen irresistible cookiesThey’ve each won, and will shortly be receiving from Gifttree.com, two dozen irresistible cookies in five flavors: White Chocolate Hazelnut, Snickerdoodle, Peanut Butter, Oatmeal Raisin, and Chocolate Chip.

The correct answer for the modified Carbamates chromatogram: we reversed the two reagents. The OPA reagent was pumped in the Reagent One position, and the Hydrolysis reagent was pumped in the Reagent Two position. Thus 1-Naphthol, which is naturally fluorescent, appears full-sized. The other Carbamate peaks have different sizes due to their varying rate of hydrolysis – the high pH of the OPA reagent will allow for some but not complete hydrolysis prior to detection.

Chromatography Quiz: Amino Acid Analysis

Identify the error made when running the Amino Acids chromatogram below and win a prize! Simply email your answer and your full contact information to Rebecca at rlsmith@pickeringlabs.com by March 1st in order to win. The troubleshooting answer and winner congratulations will be published in the next issue (to be anonymous, please notify Rebecca in submission).

Amino Acid Analysis of Physiological Fluids:

Pickering Standard: 011006P Native Sample Standard 0.25 µmole/mL, 10 µL injection

Pickering Column: 0354100T High Efficiency Lithium Cation-exchange Column, 4.0 x 100 mm

Normal Operating Conditions: (for reference only, condition changes may be reflected in chromatogram)

Column Temperature: 36 °C

Flow rate: 0.35 mL/min

Eluent Gradient:
Amino Acid Analysis of Physiological Fluids

Post-column conditions for amino acid analysis:
Reagent 1: Trione
Reactor 1: 130 °C, 0.5 mL
Reagent flow rate: 0.3 mL/min

Detection: UV-Vis Detector, 570nm for primary amino acids, 440nm for secondary amino acids UV-Vis Detector
Hint: Assume in this case that both Guard and Analytical column are good. For more information, search standard Amino Acid chromatogram.