Vibhuti Patel, Deputy Editor

Author Archive

2013 Bunsen-Kirchhoff Award for Analytical Spectroscopy

07 Sep 2012

Nominations are open for the 2013 “Bunsen-Kirchhoff-Preis für analytische Spektroskopie”. This award, from the German Working group for Applied Spectroscopy (DASp), honours the work of young scientists from universities, research institutes or industry who have made excellent contributions to analytical spectroscopy.

The Award consists of an award-document and an amount of €2500 sponsored by Perkin Elmer, and nominations are preferred for work in new and emerging areas, such as spectroscopy in nano compartments, and spectroscopy of biomolecules.

Each nomination should include:
– a letter detailing the candidate’s accomplishments
– a list of publications or recent work
– scientific curriculum vitae stating the age of the candidate, their address and contact details

Nominations should be from a member of DASp but eligibility is open for any scientist meeting the requirements. Self-nomination is excluded. The recipient will be decided by a jury comprising current members of the board of DASp. Further information is available here.

The deadline for nominations is 15 December 2012, and all documents should be sent to:
Prof. Dr. Detlef Günther, President of the Jury for the Bunsen-Kirchhoff Award 2013
ETH Zürich, Laboratorium für Anorganische Chemie, Wolfgang-pauli-Str. 10, HCI G113, CH-8093 Zürich (Schweiz) detlef.guenther@inorg.chem.ethz.ch

Take a look at some recent papers from previous winners of the Bunsen-Kirchhoff Award:

2010 Janina Kneipp
Iodine as an elemental marker for imaging of single cells and tissue sections by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
Charlotte Giesen, Larissa Waentig, Thomas Mairinger, Daniela Drescher, Janina Kneipp, Peter H. Roos, Ulrich Panne and Norbert Jakubowski
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2011,26, 2160-2165
DOI: 10.1039/C1JA10227C

2009 Joachim Koch
Visualization, velocimetry, and mass spectrometric analysis of engineered and laser-produced particles passing through inductively coupled plasma sources
Luca Flamigni, Joachim Koch, Helmar Wiltsche, Robert Brogioli, Sabrina Gschwind and Detlef Günther
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012,27, 619-625
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA10317F

2007 Jörg Bettmer
Analysis of hepcidin, a key peptide for Fe homeostasis, via sulfur detection by capillary liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
T. Konz, M. Montes-Bayón, J. Bettmer and A. Sanz-Medel
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2011,26, 334-340
DOI: 10.1039/C0JA00053A

Comments Off on 2013 Bunsen-Kirchhoff Award for Analytical Spectroscopy

JAAS and the Mars Curiosity Rover

05 Sep 2012

Study of rock identification at the surface of Mars by LIBS

The paper by Sirven et al. featured on the front cover of JAAS, 2007, Issue 12

Back in 2007, we published a paper in JAAS about the LIBS analysis that would be used to identify rocks during an upcoming mission to study Mars. Now, the ChemCam instrument is an operational part of the Mars Science Laboratory on the Curiosity mission, helping to achieve its four goals:

Determine whether life ever arose on Mars
Characterize the climate of Mars
Characterize the geology of Mars
Prepare for human exploration

Take a look at the paper, which will be free to access until 30 September 2012 to see why the combination of two chemometric approaches mean a higher level of analytical accuracy:

Feasibility study of rock identification at the surface of Mars by remote laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy and three chemometric methods
Jean-Baptiste Sirven, Béatrice Sallé, Patrick Mauchien, Jean-Luc Lacour, Sylvestre Maurice and Gérard Manhès
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2007,22, 1471-1480
DOI: 10.1039/B704868H

Want to know more about this mission to the Red Planet? We will be gaining insight from one of the drivers of the Curiosity rover live this Friday. Paolo Bellutta works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and he will join us live from Pasadena on Friday 7 September at 16:00 BST for a question-and-answer session to be broadcast on the RSC YouTube channel.

Find out more here, and follow things on Twitter using #RSCmars

Comments Off on JAAS and the Mars Curiosity Rover

2012 Strock Award for JAAS Advisory Board member Ralph Sturgeon

24 Jul 2012

The Society for Applied Spectroscopy (SAS) and the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS) have announced that JAAS Advisory Board member Professor Ralph Sturgeon of the National Research Council, Canada, has been selected as the recipient of the New England Section of the SAS’s 2012 Lester W. Strock Award.

This award has been established by the New England Section and is given annually to an author in recognition of a selected publication of substantive research in/or application of analytical atomic spectrochemistry in the fields of earth science, life sciences, or stellar and cosmic sciences.

Professor Sturgeon will present the Strock Award Plenary Lecture entitled “Vapor Generation – Make It Your Second Thought for Sample Introduction” on Thursday October 4th at the SciX conference in Kansas, USA.

Ralph follows in the footsteps of other JAAS Board members as recipient of this award, including Gary Hieftje, John Olesik, Detlef Günther and Annemie Bogaerts.

Congratulations, Ralph!

Take a look at a few of Ralph’s recent papers in JAAS below:

Perspective: Some speculations on the mechanisms of photochemical vapor generation
Ralph E. Sturgeon and Patricia Grinberg
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012,27, 222-231
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA10249H

Technical Note: UV photochemical generation of volatile cadmium species
Joaquim A. Nóbrega, Ralph E. Sturgeon, Patricia Grinberg, Graeme J. Gardner, Christine S. Brophy and Edivaldo E. Garcia
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2011,26, 2519-2523
DOI: 10.1039/C1JA10252D

Critical Review: Applications of chemical vapor generation in non-tetrahydroborate media to analytical atomic spectrometry
Peng Wu, Liang He, Chengbin Zheng, Xiandeng Hou and Ralph E. Sturgeon
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2010,25, 1217-1246
DOI: 10.1039/C003483E
From themed issue 2010 Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry

Comments Off on 2012 Strock Award for JAAS Advisory Board member Ralph Sturgeon

Arsenic-resistant bacterium still needs phosphate for growth

10 Jul 2012

A paper co-authored by JAAS Editorial Board Chair, Detlef Günther has been published in Science and contributes to an ongoing discussion on the role of arsenic in the bacterial isolate GFAJ-1.

In December 2010, Felisa Wolfe-Simon and colleagues published a paper, also in Science, which proposed that GFAJ-1 could substitute small amounts of phosphorus in its DNA with arsenic. This claim would have significant implications for our understanding of life, since all known forms of life on Earth typically use oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus and sulfur.

This new work from Detlef and fellow researchers at ETH Zürich shows that GFAJ-1 is able to grow at low phosphate concentrations even under high arsenate concentrations, but cannot grow in phosphorus-depleted, arsenate-containing medium. They combined physiological experiments with ICP-OES and ICP-MS to provide evidence that whilst GFAJ-1 is highly resistant to arsenate, but still requires phosphate for growth. The authors say that the molecular basis for arsenate resistance in GFAJ-1 could be the subject of further investigations.

GFAJ-1 Is an Arsenate-Resistant, Phosphate-Dependent Organism
Tobias J. Erb, Patrick Kiefer, Bodo Hattendorf, Detlef Günther, Julia A. Vorholt
DOI: 10.1126/science.1218455

Also published in Science is a paper from Rosie Redfield and colleagues at Princeton University, which supports the conclusions from the ETH group:

Absence of Detectable Arsenate in DNA from Arsenate-Grown GFAJ-1 Cells
Marshall Louis Reaves, Sunita Sinha, Joshua D. Rabinowitz, Leonid Kruglyak, Rosemary J. Redfield
DOI: 10.1126/science.1219861

Though not quite as controversial, take a look at some recent content in JAAS on arsenic:

Technical Note: Rapid screening of arsenic species in urine from exposed human by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry with germanium as internal standard
A. Castillo, C. Boix, N. Fabregat, A. F. Roig-Navarro and J. A. Rodríguez-Castrillón
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 354-358
DOI: 10.1039/C1JA10289C

An interlaboratory study of arsenic speciation analysis of whole blood
Kanna Ito, Walter Goessler, Hakan Gürleyük, Brian Wels, Christopher D. Palmer, Mary Frances Verostek and Patrick J. Parsons
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2011, 26, 1740-1745
DOI: 10.1039/C1JA10040H

Intracellular, time-resolved speciation and quantification of arsenic compounds in human urothelial and hepatoma cells
Joerg Hippler, Ricarda Zdrenka, Robin A. D. Reichel, Daniel G. Weber, Peter Rozynek, Georg Johnen, Elke Dopp and Alfred V. Hirner
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2011, 26, 2396-2403
DOI: 10.1039/C1JA10150A

Comments Off on Arsenic-resistant bacterium still needs phosphate for growth

Issue 7 online: themed issue on Nanoanalysis

15 Jun 2012

Front cover: Nischwitz & Goenaga-Infante, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 1084-1092

The latest issue of JAAS is now online, which is a themed issue on Nanoanalysis. Guest Edited by Petra Krystek, Zoltán Mester and Kay Niemax, this themed issue highlights an important area of atomic spectrometry. May Copsey and I introduce the issue on behalf of the Guest Editors in an Editorial:

A snapshot of atomic and elemental analysis on the nanoscale
May Copsey and Vibhuti Patel
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 1049-1049
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA90038F

The front cover features a paper from Volker Nischwitz and Heidi Goenaga-Infante, which presents the first systematic comparison and optimisation of extraction methods for the characterisation of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in sunscreens using FFF-ICP-MS.

Improved sample preparation and quality control for the characterisation of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in sunscreens using flow field flow fractionation on-line with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
Volker Nischwitz and Heidi Goenaga-Infante
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 1084-1092
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA10387G

Franze et al., J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 1074-1083

The inside front cover highlights a paper from JAAS News contributor Carsten Engelhard and colleagues. They compare the analytical performance of three sample introduction systems for the characterization of 20–100 nm Ag nanoparticles.

Single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry: evaluation of three different pneumatic and piezo-based sample introduction systems for the characterization of silver nanoparticles
Bastian Franze, Ingo Strenge and Carsten Engelhard
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 1074-1083
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA00003B

Other HOT articles in this issue are:

Critical Review: SIMS imaging of the nanoworld: applications in science and technology
Mathias Senoner and Wolfgang E. S. Unger
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 1050-1068
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA30015J

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for analysis of micro and nanoparticles
Prasoon K. Diwakar, Kristofer H. Loper, Anna-Maria Matiaske and David. W. Hahn
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 1110-1119
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA30012E

Considerations for measurement of individual nanoparticles or microparticles by ICP-MS: determination of the number of particles and the analyte mass in each particle
John W. Olesik and Patrick J. Gray
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 1143-1155
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA30073G

Comments Off on Issue 7 online: themed issue on Nanoanalysis

HOT article: Improved analysis of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in sunscreens by ICP-MS

23 Apr 2012

Improved analysis of nanoparticles in sunscreen

Nischwitz and Goenaga-Infante, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, Advance Article

Titanium dioxide in nanoparticulate form is used in large scale in a variety of consumer products including sunscreens, so there is an increasing need for methodology for the reliable characterisation of the particle size and size dependent elemental composition in these complex matrices.

Such measurement capability is essential for underpinning safety assessments, for quality control of existing products and for correlation of nanoparticle characteristics with biological effects observed in toxicity tests.

This paper from Volker Nischwitz and Heidi Goenaga-Infante of LGC, Teddington, UK, describes the first systematic comparison and optimisation of extraction methods for titanium dioxide nanoparticles in sunscreen samples.

Comments Off on HOT article: Improved analysis of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in sunscreens by ICP-MS

Themed issue on Archaeometry now online

13 Apr 2012

JAAS 2012, Archaeometry themed issue, front cover

Front cover: Fan et al, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 821-826

The latest issue of JAAS features our themed issue on Archaeometry, Guest Edited by Patrick Degryse of the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium.

The front cover is an article from this issue by Changsui Wang of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China and co-workers. They performed analyses on an artifact of brass apparently predating the Bronze Age, which was unearthed at Jiangzhai site (China, Shaanxi Province, 4700-4000 BC) in order to infer the probable metallurgical process for the production of this early brass.

Brass before bronze? Early copper-alloy metallurgy in China
Xiaopan Fan, Garman Harbottle, Qiang Gao, Weirong Zhou, Qiming Gong, Hua Wang, Xiaohan Yu and Changsui Wang
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 821-826
DOI: 10.1039/C2JA10257A

Atomic spectrometry in Central and Eastern Europe: submissions open

02 Mar 2012

We will be publishing a web themed issue comprising work from Central and Eastern Europe in the field of analytical atomic spectrometry. The aim is to highlight, to the wider international community, the achievements in analytical atomic and mass spectrometry made by the researches from this area.

The Guest Editors for this collection are Professor Jiří Dědina of Charles University in Prague, and Professor Pawel Pohl of Wroclaw University of Technology.

Manuscripts are welcome until the submission deadline on 1 June 2012.

Names of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Find out more, including how to submit

Comments Off on Atomic spectrometry in Central and Eastern Europe: submissions open

Spectr’Atom 2012: 19-22 June, Pau

24 Feb 2012

The 2012 Spectr’Atom conference takes place at Palais Beaumont, Pau, France, 19-22 June.

This meeting is aimed at a wide spectrum of atomic spectrometry users and seeks to promote exchanges between francophone colleagues from Europe, Africa and Canada.

The organisers hope that such an exchange forum will contribute to the development of various sectors of the analytical sciences in French-speaking countries.

Submission of abstracts is open until 31 March, and more details can be found on the event website.

See below for a selection of papers from French-speaking countries*
*We can’t promise that all the authors are themselves fluent in French!

Quantitative analysis of metallic traces in water-based liquids by UV-IR double-pulse laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy
Kheireddine Rifai, Stéphane Laville, François Vidal, Mohamad Sabsabi and Mohamed Chaker
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 276-283
DOI: 10.1039/C1JA10178A

Detection of selenoproteins in human cell extracts by laser ablation-ICP MS after separation by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and blotting
Juliusz Bianga, Guillaume Ballihaut, Christophe Pécheyran, Zahia Touat, Hugues Preud’homme, Sandra Mounicou, Laurent Chavatte, Ryszard Lobinski and Joanna Szpunar
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012, 27, 25-32
DOI: 10.1039/C1JA10239G

First examination of slag inclusions in medieval armours by confocal SR-µ-XRF and LA-ICP-MS
S. Leroy, R. Simon, L. Bertrand, A. Williams, E. Foy and Ph. Dillmann
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2011, 26, 1078-1087
DOI: 10.1039/C0JA00261E

Combined neutron and synchrotron X-ray microprobe analysis: attempt to disclose 3600 years-old secrets of a unique bronze age metal artifact
D. Grolimund, D. Berger, S. Bolliger Schreyer, C. N. Borca, S. Hartmann, F. Müller, J. Hovind, K. Hunger, E. H. Lehmann, P. Vontobel and H. A. O. Wang
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2011, 26, 1012-1023
DOI: 10.1039/C0JA00262C

Comments Off on Spectr’Atom 2012: 19-22 June, Pau

Professor Shan Gao elected Academician

17 Jan 2012

JAAS Editorial Board member Professor Shan Gao of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) has been elected academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was founded in 1949; it is a leading academic institution and comprehensive research and development center in natural science, technological science and high-tech innovation in China.

Congratulations Professor Gao!

Read Prof. Gao’s editorial on the development of atomic spectrometry in China:

Editorial: The rise of atomic spectrometry in China over the past 25 years
Shan Gao
J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2010, 25, 1803-1807
DOI: 10.1039/C0JA00045K

JAAS News