JAAS News

The 23^rd ICP-MS User Meeting was held jointly with the 10^th Symposium on Mass Spectrometry Methods for Trace Element Analysis on September 10-12 at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Tulln, Austria. The meeting is a biannual event of analytical chemists held in Germany/Austria/Switzerland. This year it was organized by Thomas Prohaska, Stephan Hann, Johanna Irrgeher, and member of the editorial board Gunda Köllensperger.

Attendees listening to a talk (picture by VIRIS lab).

Over 120 attendees discussed fundamentals, applications, and future trends in ICP-MS. The meeting was a great venue for scientific exchange between ICP-MS users in academia and industry as well as instrument manufactures. Over the course of three days, young investigators and established scientists presented highlights of their research and discussed cutting-edge topics and challenging issues in 30 oral and 17 poster presentations. Lectures were held in three main sessions, materials testing, biological applications, and environmental applications. Instrument manufactures had the opportunity to present features and benefits of their ICP mass spectrometers in a dedicated vendor session and the exhibition hall. Posters could be assessed for the entire period of the user meeting with scheduled poster sessions to meet the authors.

We are very much looking forward to the next ICP-MS User Meeting, which will we held in Germany in 2014. Daniel Pröfrock and his team will organize the event at the Helmholtz Centre in Geesthacht.

Bastian Franze and Carsten Engelhard

Take a look at some recent papers from the meeting organizers:

Accurate quantification of mercury in river water by isotope dilution MC-ICP-SFMS and ICP-QMS detection after cold vapour generation,
Lisa Fischer,  Marion Brunner, Thomas Prohaska and Stephan Hann, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012,27, 1983-1991.

Abstract submission is open for the SCIX 2012 meeting presented by the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS). SCIX will be held in Kansas City, MO, USA, from September 30 – October 5.

The submission deadline for abstracts that will be considered for oral presentation is April 20, 2012. Abstracts will be accepted until July 31 for poster presentations. Please visit http://scixconference.org for abstract submission and further information.

Steven Ray, SCIX 2012 Program Chair and coauthor of this entry, has identified several focal areas that will be highlighted in the 2012 program:

• Current status of the analytical sciences: focus on human health (organized by RSC and ACS)
• Atomic spectrometry and the analysis of nanomaterials
• Speciation analysis: progress in trace metal speciation
• New plasmas, new instrumentation, and new approaches at the frontier of atomic spectrometry
• Isoscapes: redefining the landscape in the archaeological and geological sciences with high fidelity isotope ratio analysis
• Sampling the world with laser ablation and atomic spectrometry
• Chemistry in arts and archaeology
• Novel sample introduction techniques and tools for atomic spectroscopy
• Fundamental aspects of plasma spectrochemistry: using what we learn to improve analytical atomic spectrometry

Contributed sessions will be added to the program as space allows. If you do not see a program area above that fits your research focus, don’t let it stop you from submitting a paper!

We look forward to seeing you in Kansas City.

Carsten Engelhard
SCIX 2012 Atomic Spectroscopy Program Section Chair

Exhibition floor

The 2012 Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry & Applied Spectroscopy, Pittcon, was held on March 11 – 14, 2012 in Orlando, Florida.

Over ~1,280 oral presentations and ~100 short courses on all aspects of analytical chemistry were presented.

Clearly, one highlight of the scientific program was the session entitled “Advancing analytical technologies for human health and security”, organized by Dr. May Copsey, Editor of the Analytical journals at RSC.  Distinguished scientists Prof. Gary M. Hieftje, Prof. Joseph Caruso, Prof. R. Kenneth Marcus, Prof. Roy Goodacre, and Prof. Zheng Ouyang gave well-received lectures on their recent discoveries.

Prof. R. Graham Cooks, Purdue University, gave the Sunday plenary lecture and demonstrated how ambient ionization and miniaturized mass spectrometers can help to promote human health and forensics.

(You can find some recent examples of these authors’ work below – May Copsey, Ed.)

The RSC booth on the exhibition floor was very busy thanks to free coffee and – more importantly – the presence of RSC journal editors and staff. Many visitors stopped by to meet, greet, and to learn about new things at RSC.

Exhibition centre

Interestingly, the exhibition was smaller compared to previous years and major companies, namely Perkin Elmer and Agilent Technologies, skipped the show. In total, approx. 15,500 attendees visited the conference and expo.

If you attended the conference and would like to share your experience, please leave a comment below.

Pittcon 2013 will be held in Philadelphia, PA, March 17 – 21, 2013.

We look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia.

Of course, this is just a personal view and many more instruments from other companies are available as well. For more information please visit, e.g., the scientific instruments database provided by EVISA.

Articles of interest

Thermal mechanism for formation of electrical prepeak and pressure waves in a microsecond direct current pulsed glow discharge with a Grimm-type source: a modeling investigation
Maxim Voronov, V Hoffmann, Wolfgang Buscher, Carsten Engelhard, Steven J Ray and Gary M Hieftje
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI:10.1039/C2JA30014A

Significant proteins affecting cerebral vasospasm using complementary ICPMS and MALDI-MS
Renee N. Easter, Colin G. Barry, Gail Pyne-Geithman and Joseph A. Caruso
Metallomics, 2012, 4, 48-55
DOI: 10.1039/C1MT00079A

Systems level studies of mammalian metabolomes: the roles of mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
Warwick B. Dunn, David I. Broadhurst, Helen J. Atherton, Royston Goodacre and Julian L. Griffin
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2011, 40, 387-426
DOI: 10.1039/B906712B

Femtosecond laser ablation particle introduction to a liquid sampling-atmospheric pressure glow discharge ionization source
Anthony J. Carado, C. Derrick Quarles, Andrew M. Duffin, Charles J. Barinaga, Richard E. Russo, R. Kenneth Marcus, Gregory C. Eiden and David W. Koppenaal
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 385-389
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA10331A

Rapid Analysis of Whole Blood by Paper Spray Mass Spectrometry for Point-of-Care Therapeutic Drug Monitoring
Ryan D Espy,  Nicholas E Manicke,  Zheng Ouyang and R. Graham Cooks
Analyst, 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2AN35082C