by Maria Ofitserova

As some of you probably noticed, a number of Pickering Laboratories products are now arriving with different looking labels. In addition to the product name, part number, lot number and expiration date, the labels now also display red and black pictograms as well as a lot of fine print text. What is going on?

We would like to first reassure our loyal customers that you are getting the correct product and absolutely nothing about the formulation of our products has changed. Beginning June 1, 2015 OSHA enacted modifications to its Hazard Communication Standard to align it with GHS specifications. This means that all companies manufacturing and selling chemicals are now required to comply with GHS specifications when labeling their products. This also means that the information listed in Safety Data Sheets (SDS) needed to be updated and presented in a standardized way.

Pickering Laboratories has been working for several months on updating our Safety Data Sheets to comply with new regulations. We encourage all of our customers to visit our website at www.pickeringlabs.com/library/material-safety-data-sheets/ and download new SDSs for your records.

We also spend a lot of time designing GHS-compliant labels for our products which proved not as easy as one might think!  A lot of our products come in small bottles and fitting all the required information was a tall order. We would like to particularly thank Anita Gribaldo, who was responsible for formatting the text for all our new labels, for her patience and perseverance. She has done a great job and we are really proud of our new look.

According to our updated Safety Data Sheets there are now a small number of Pickering products that require treatment as hazardous materials during shipment. Rebecca Smith, Tony McIsaac and I spend several days at IATA training learning more than we ever wanted to know about shipping lithium batteries, dry ice as well as chemicals like Thiofluor and OPA. We saw some graphic pictures of what can happen to lithium batteries if they are not packaged and shipped correctly so our new motto is “Friends don’t allow friends to ship lithium batteries without IATA certification”.

Please be assured that all chemicals leaving Pickering Laboratories are properly labeled, packaged and shipped according to DOT and IATA regulations.

Stay safe at home and at the work place!

Skin comes into contact with exogenous materials both intentionally and unintentionally.  These materials will interact with skin depending on the composition and properties of the skin surface film liquids. These surface liquids are mainly made up of eccrine sweat and sebum.  Sebum is an oily secretion produced by sebaceous glands, which are tiny ducts adjacent to hair follicles.  Sebum is secreted into the follicle, from which it spreads over the hair and skin.  The main role of sebum is to waterproof the skin and hair.  

Partitioning and diffusion of molecules in a topical use product within human sebum would influence the success or failure of this product. By doing quality testing during the development and production of cosmetics and other topical use products under artificial conditions, manufacturers can be assured of product performance in advance of consumer use.  Another use would be in evaluating the efficacy of home laundry products and conditions to remove stains from fabric.  Testing is not limited to fabric or topic use products and can be extended to anything that will come in contact with human skin.

Pickering Laboratories Inc. is now offering artificial sebum according to D4265-14 in 25 g quantities for product testing.  We also sell artificial eccrine perspiration and a variety of industry-specific perspiration formulations.  All formulations are available with an optional stabilizing preservative or at a custom pH to fit your specific needs.  Pickering Labs also produces proprietary custom formulations to meet individual customers’ in-house specifications. 

• 1700-0700         Artificial Sebum (25 g)
• 1700-0020         Artificial Eccrine Perspiration (Stabilized, 200 mL)
• 1700-0022         Artificial Eccrine Perspiration (Non-Stabilized, 200 mL)

 Please visit our webpage at www.pickeringtestsolutions.com to see a full list of available products and part numbers. 

By Mike Gottschalk

Michael Pickering got the idea for Trione on his first day as a research chemist at Durrum Instruments back in 1976. While they were showing him their Amino Acid analysis instrument they opened the refrigerator to reveal the eluents and reagents in their reservoirs. One solution was red. He asked, “What’s the red stuff?” The reply was that it was the ninhydrin reagent. He asked, “Why is it red, ninhydrin isn’t red!” The answer was no one knew. He said, show me the instrument later, take me to documents, “I want to see the formula for the ninhydrin.” Seeing the formula reveal that Stan Moore’s recipe included Dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) as the essential water miscible organic solvent. While DMSO is a great solvent, it’s also reactive, and responsible for the secondary reactions that lead to the background red color.

Before join Durrum Instruments Michael had followed the work of George Olah in Carbonium ion chemistry. He’s the guy who developed “magic acid” which could protonate methane to make CH₅+. His solvent of choice was sulfolane, a water miscible, non-reactive organic solvent.

The idea was born. However, Durrum Instruments had no interest in making consumables. The company where he next worked was Spectra Physics which also had no interest in making consumables. But on his starting interview with personal he was required to list his ideas that he thought were patentable. Number one was Trione.

Early on, he enlisted the help of Bertum Russel, a chemistry patent attorney to get the patent for Trione. Bertum’s conditions were “If you think you’re going to make money by licensing this I won’t waste your money, but if you are going to make it, I’ll get you a patent.”

That same year, Michael contacted Stan Moore at Rockefeller University to get his assessment after using Trione. Afterall, what better way to start a business than to have the endorsement of one of the researchers who developed the original ninhydrin. Stan said, “You should do well with this but I have post-docs making ninhydrin for me every day so I won’t need to buy it.”

Undeterred, Michael gave seminars and workshops thought the analytical community and soon acceptance by the analytical chemists made Trione the best in class ninhydrin for Amino Acid analysis it is today.

This year’s Pittcon was held in Chicago, Illinois from March 3-6.

The overwhelming theme of this meeting was COLD. Winter was still very present in Chicago that week with temperatures dropping well below freezing.

But despite the cold, there was a good turnout and it was a successful show. As usual, we had on hand our Pinnacle PCX and our post-column applications. We also had our FREESTYLE Sample Cleanup system. This is always a great show for meeting distributors, suppliers, customers. Nowadays Pittcon is as much (if not more) about networking and meetings as it is about finding new equipment.

We usually try to find some adventure or other on the Sunday before the show starts, and this year was no exception. This year, we braved the cold and the snow to venture out to Gary, Indiana!  Before Pittcon, this editor had visited 45 of the 50 US States. Indiana was one of 5 remaining.

The requirements for the day were: 1) easy to get to without a car 2) be located outside the city limits of Chicago and 3) have a restaurant/bar close to the train station.  After some internet research, the 18th Street Brewery in Gary, IN seemed to fit the bill perfectly!

We took the South Shore Line from McCormick Place  out to Gary, where we trudged through a foot of snow to the 18th Street Brewery.  It turns out this is a wonderful brewery with good beer and friendly folks. And they even had a grill out back which was cooking up kielbasa sausage with kimchi. If you’re ever in Chicago and need a change of pace, or are in northern Indiana, it’s worth a stop.

All in all it was a good trip and a successful meeting. But I’m glad Pittcon 2015 will be in New Orleans…