Category Archives: pickering laboratories

carbamate, Chromatography Quiz, pickering laboratories, post-column derivatization

Chromatography Quiz No. 13

Chromatography Quiz #12 Results

We would like to congratulate our grand prize winners of our last newsletter’s Amino Acid Analysis Chromatography Quiz: Luiz Paulo Mousinho from Chemetric in Brazil, Helene Lachance from Shur-Gain Nutreco in Canada, and Narjes Ghafoori from the LA County Environmental Toxicology Laboratory!!!

They have each won and will be receiving: a $100 gift card from Amazon.com!  We would like to thank all of you for your submissions.

The correct answer for the modified Amino Acids chromatogram: the back pressure regulator on the outlet of the detector stopped functioning properly.  This was indeed another hardware troubleshooting quiz!  The pattern of noise seen in the customer’s baseline is characteristic to this problem, and a new back pressure regulator eliminated the noise.

Thank you!
Pickering Labs

Chromatography Quiz #13:
Identify the error made when running the Carbamate chromatogram below and win a prize!  Simply email your answer as well as your full contact information to Rebecca at rlsmith@pickeringlabs.com by August 30, 2013 in order to win.  You will receive email confirmation that your submission has been received.  The troubleshooting answer and winner congratulations will be published in the next issue (to be anonymous, please notify Rebecca in submission).

Carbamate Analysis for US EPA Method 531.1

Pickering Standard: 1700-0063 Carbamate Test Mixture, 2.5 µg/mL, 10 µL injection

Pickering Column: 1846250 Carbamate Column, C18, 4.6 x 250 mm

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

Column Temperature: 42 °C

Flow rate: 1 mL/min

Eluent Gradient:

TIME

WATER

MeOH %

0

85

15

1

85

15

44

25

75

44.1

0

100

49

0

100

49.1

85

15

57

85

15

 

Post-column conditions:

Reagent 1: Hydrolysis reagent CB130

Reagent 2: 100 mg of OPA, 2 g Thiofluor™ in 950 mL of CB910

Reactor 1: 100 °C, 0.5 mL

Reactor 2: ambient. 0.1 mL

Reagent flow rates: 0.3 mL/min

Detection: Fluorometer ex 330 nm, em 465 nm

Troubleshooting Chromatogram:

Troubleshooting chromatogram_CarbamateReference Chromatogram:

Reference chromatogram_Carbamate

aflatoxin, Amino Acid Analysis, carbamate, chromatographic specialties, Chromatography, clean-up, eluvac, freestyle, glyphosate, GPC, herbal products, HPLC, immunoaffinity cleanup, lctech, Multi-residue Mycotoxin Analysis, mycotoxin, natural products, natural toxins, New Products, Ninhydrin, ochratoxin, pickering laboratories, pinnacle pcx, Pittcon, post-column derivatization, spe

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…

antioxidants, AOAC, herbal products, mycotoxin, natural products, natural toxins, pickering laboratories, supplyside

Pickering exhibits in Las Vegas

-By Mike Gottschalk

Las Vegas, Nevada – Oct. 1 – 5 was the site of the AOAC international show this year.  Pickering Laboratories participated as usual in this important International event. “We see many of our customers and distributors from all over the world at this show” said Wendy Rasmussen, sales manager Pickering Laboratories. “We get to show our new products and catch up with them with new developments in their business.”

Pickering Laboratories presented Posters of our new applications Chrome VI and Antioxidants in foods. The herbal supplement market is a growing market and with FDA guidance, more concerned with testing for quality in their products. “We continue to develop methods in matrices important to this market including the antioxidants, Aflatoxins, Amino Acids and others”  said Laszlo Torma, technical liaison for Pickering Laboratories.

The AOAC international show enables laboratories and suppliers to be involved in the mission of creating analytical methods for today’s most pressing testing challenges. Pickering Laboratories is an award winning member of several committees and laboratory collaborations to further the goal of analytical excellence.

Las Vegas, Nevada – Nov. 6-9 – Yes! Las Vegas Again! This time for the annual Supply Side West show.  1,800 vendors and 30,000 participants meet to network and explore resources in this, the largest gathering of Herbal supplement suppliers and vendors.  Now that the FDA enforcements are increasing, many Herbal supplement manufacturers are working hard to improve their analytical testing capabilities and Pickering Laboratories is there to help.  “With several methods for herbal supplement testing and extensive experience in the food safety industry we can offer experience and laboratory equipment support to the herbal supplement manufactures” – said Mike Gottschalk, VP Marketing, Pickering Laboratories.

Laszlo Torma enjoys the sights and sounds of “Venice”

Pickering Laboratories is a member of the “American Herbal Products Association” and member of the Laboratories Methods Committee for AHPA. The collaboration with AHPA and the Supply Side West show have provided valuable insight to the needs of the Supplement community and the unique capabilities Pickering Laboratories can offer this market.

AOAC, clean-up, freestyle, GPC, lctech, New Products, pickering laboratories, spe

New! FREESTYLE Series Instrumentation

Pickering Laboratories introduced the Freestyle™ Sample Clean-up workstation from LCTech at this year’s AOAC International meeting in New Orleans.  Building on the success of the GPC Ultra product line of Gel Permeation Chromatography systems,  the FREESTYLE™Series  is an innovative design adding new time saving features to the automated sample clean-up work flow.

The Freestyle™ begins with:

  • FREESTYLE™ Basic, which has an XYZ robotic arm for automated liquid handling; dilutions, additions, mixing, extraction, dispensing, and other operations.
  • Add the GPC module for GPC processing of up to 4 GPC columns. 
  • Add to this the SPE module to enable SPE processing. 
  • Add the EVA module for programmable evaporation and solvent exchange for a completely automated in-line evaporation instrument.
Flexibility of the system starts with the suspended rack design. The system can handle multiple vial shapes from 1mL to 1000mL.

The FREESTYLE™software is drag and drop to program multiple sample parameters and able to handle exceptions to insert into the workflow. Graphical reporting and full audit logs round out the robust software.

The FREESTYLE™ automation of sample clean-up saves time, improves consistency and protects your staff from potentially harmful chemical exposure.

Send us an email or give us a call to find out how FREESTYLE™ can solve your sample clean-up challenges. 

Email: sales@pickeringlabs.com
Phone: Toll-free: 800-654-3330, Direct: 650-694-6700

high volume, inert, low flow rate, pickering laboratories, syringe pump

Pickering Expands into the OEM Pump Market!

By Mike Gottschalk

Pickering Laboratories has made available the Pinnacle PCX syringe pump for OEM applications. The pump is the heart of the successful Pinnacle PCX instrument. “This syringe pump’s service record and performance are truly remarkable. We designed it for long life and exacting specifications; now six years later and a thousand working units in the field we are very confident this pump will be successful in other applications”, said Michael Pickering.

When the Pinnacle PCX was designed a suitable pump could not be found so the design of a perfect syringe pump was begun. The results are a very precise, pulse free, and inert pump rugged and reliable enough for our analytical chemical instrument. The current specifications are an alumina ceramic cylinder with PEEK for inert flow path, a 70 ml volume cylinder, low flow rates range of 30µL/min – 1500µL/min, at pressures of 300 – 500 psi.

Of all the syringe pumps available today our pump is unique in its pressure range and absolute inert materials. These features will be useful in industrial fluid delivery applications and we will begin marketing to the large industrial equipment market. We have engaged with Globalspec to help us introduce this product. Globalspec is the leading specialized vertical search company serving the engineering, manufacturing and related scientific and technical market segments.

For more information on the OEM Syringe pump:
OEM Pump PDF