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Analytical Chemistry

Exposition Highlights

C&EN academic advisers and instrument industry journalists select the most significant new instruments introduced at Pittcon 2014

by Stu Borman
March 31, 2014 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 92, Issue 13

 

Pittcon is one of the most important venues on the annual scientific meeting calendar for introductions of new analytical chemistry instruments and other lab equipment, and 2014 didn’t disappoint. Researchers who specialize in four areas of analytical chemistry—molecular and atomic spectroscopy, chromatography, and mass spectrometry (MS)—volunteer to advise C&EN each year on which of the many products introduced at Pittcon seem most noteworthy. And instrument industry editors attending Pittcon give awards to instruments they deem to represent the year’s most innovative and potentially market-changing new products.

Selections made by both groups this year include a chip-based near-infrared (near-IR) dispersion device; a wide-spectral-range IR detector; two “hyperspectral” (broad-spectrum multiwavelength) imaging systems; two laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) elemental analyzers; a vacuum-ultraviolet gas chromatography (GC) detector; a single-quadrupole MS detector for liquid chromatography (LC); and two new systems for coupling separation tools to mass spectrometers.

Molecular spectroscopy

 

IR spectroscopy was a major focus among significant new products at the meeting this year, said single-molecule spectroscopy expert Christy Landes of Rice University, C&EN’s molecular spectroscopy adviser for Pittcon 2014. A number of new technologies introduced at the exposition offer expanded spectral access to the near-, mid-, and far-IR regions of the spectrum, she said.

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Credit: Texas Instruments
The Pittcon Editors’ Gold Award-winning DLP4500NIR chip (left, 0.81 × 0.35 × 0.11 inches) and the DLP NIRscan evaluation module (7.5 × 4.5 × 3.75 inches), which includes the chip, can be used to construct inexpensive high-performance near-IR spectrometers.
Left, a device resembling a band-aid, but with a diffraction grating in the center. Right, a plastic box with electrical leads coming out of one side.
Credit: Texas Instruments
The Pittcon Editors’ Gold Award-winning DLP4500NIR chip (left, 0.81 × 0.35 × 0.11 inches) and the DLP NIRscan evaluation module (7.5 × 4.5 × 3.75 inches), which includes the chip, can be used to construct inexpensive high-performance near-IR spectrometers.

The most technically interesting system introduced this year was Texas Instruments’ (TI) new digital light-processing (DLP) near-IR dispersion device, Landes noted. The system also won journalists’ top honor, the Pittcon Editors’ Gold Award, this year.

DLP is a digital chip-based technology commonly used in the projectors found in conference halls and movie theaters. This is the first time such chips have been adapted for use in analytical instrumentation. At Pittcon, TI introduced the DLP4500NIR, a light-modulating chip optimized for use with near-IR radiation, and the DLP NIRscan evaluation module, a DLP4500NIR-based system that can be used to construct inexpensive high-performance near-IR spectrometers. Potential applications include nanomaterials sensing, bioimaging, and diagnostics. According to the company, DLP NIRscan will allow the construction of mobile equipment that has sensitivity and accuracy similar to that of lab equipment, with lower cost and better signal-to-noise ratios than conventional spectrometers.

The DLP4500NIR chip contains 1 million digitally programmable micromirrors. Each can be controlled individually so users can “refine spectral resolution and wavelength ranges, adjust integration time, and equalize light throughput,” according to TI.

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Credit: Peter Cutts Photography
A cake featured in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Waters’ introduction of Acquity UPLC at Pittcon.
A cake reads “Celebrating Acquity UPLC 10 years and Counting!”
Credit: Peter Cutts Photography
A cake featured in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Waters’ introduction of Acquity UPLC at Pittcon.

The evaluation module consists of the chip, a halogen lamp, a transmission sampling module, a digital controller, and an InGaAs IR detector. The system’s “programmable micromirror technology allows one to quickly select and separate different frequencies in a small footprint,” Landes said. The evaluation model is being built by Allen, Texas-based Keynote Photonics and will be available in April for a suggested retail price of about $8,500.

Another notable introduction, Landes said, was a wide-spectral-range IR detector from Bruker called the MIR-FIR DLaTGS. The detector can be combined with a broad-spectrum beam splitter the company introduced recently to create what it said is the first Fourier transform IR spectrometer that covers the complete mid-IR and far-IR spectral ranges in one step with no gaps.

Compared with previous systems, the new combination of beam splitter and detector provides faster transmittance and reflectance IR analyses for applications that require broad-spectrum measurements. It is more convenient because it’s not necessary to open the spectrometer and change beam splitters and detectors during scans, as was required before to achieve comparable spectral-range coverage.

Landes was also intrigued by the release of two hyperspectral imaging systems. The first is Spero, a laser-based IR microscope introduced by Daylight Solutions, of San Diego. Spero is a desktop instrument with an ultrabright, tunable laser source that enables high-resolution mid-IR spectral and hyperspectral imaging of biomedical and materials samples.

And BaySpec, of San Jose, Calif., announced the OCI family of lightweight, handheld hyperspectral imagers for applications ranging from geospatial imaging to in vivo biomedical imaging. “Hyperspectral imaging is well recognized for its potential, but widespread adoption has been limited by both bulk and cost,” BaySpec said, noting that it believes OCI imagers help address both those problems.

Atomic spectroscopy

 

Edward Navarre of Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, C&EN’s adviser for atomic spectroscopy, said that a growing trend toward atomic spectroscopy systems that are handheld continued at Pittcon 2014.

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Credit: Peter Cutts Photography
AB Sciex’s Edna Betgovargez with the Pittcon Editors’ Bronze Award-winning CESI 8000.
A woman poses with a bronze plaque and a scientific instrument.
Credit: Peter Cutts Photography
AB Sciex’s Edna Betgovargez with the Pittcon Editors’ Bronze Award-winning CESI 8000.

For example, portable LIBS analyzer technology continues to develop, he said. LIBS systems zap samples with lasers, generating plasmas that emit light (see page 34). The instruments’ detectors then analyze that light to measure element content.

At the meeting, Boston-based SciAps announced a LIBS instrument called the Z. The company says the instrument is designed to match the elemental analysis performance of handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzers that rely on silicon drift detectors. The Z can measure carbon and many other low-atomic-number elements—measurements that have been inaccessible with past handheld XRF systems. And TSI, in Shoreview, Minn., said its ChemLogix handheld LIBS analyzer offers point-and-shoot analysis in seconds, even for light elements.

A feature of the SciAps instrument that stands out, Navarre said, is its onboard supply of argon. The argon provides an inert environment for LIBS sampling. He noted that SciAps has also chosen to use the Android operating system for the Z’s system software, enabling results to be easily communicated to Android smartphones and tablet computers.

Chromatography

 

Separations scientists Charles A. Lucy and James Harynuk of the University of Alberta collaborated this year on evaluating Pittcon’s new chromatography products. Harynuk was particularly intrigued to find that VUV Analytics, in Austin, Texas, introduced a vacuum-UV GC detector at the meeting. “It’s the most disruptive GC product this year,” Harynuk said.

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Credit: Peter Cutts Photography
The Waters Acquity QDa Detector won this year’s Pittcon Editors’ Silver Award.
A grey, mini-fridge-sized instrument.
Credit: Peter Cutts Photography
The Waters Acquity QDa Detector won this year’s Pittcon Editors’ Silver Award.

Compounds absorb unique vacuum-UV wavelengths that can be used to characterize them, Harynuk explained. But up to now, vacuum-UV GC detectors have been available primarily only at synchrotron facilities, making them very inconvenient to use. The VGA-100 is a lab-scale implementation of vacuum UV for GC detection.

The instrument provides information that hasn’t been readily available before, Harynuk said. It could be used to resolve some compounds that can’t be distinguished by MS detection, he noted. And it doesn’t destroy separated compounds when it detects them, so “hypothetically you could put one of these in front of an MS detector” to analyze samples by GC/vacuum-UV/MS, he said.

Also at this year’s meeting, Waters Corp. reminded visitors that 2014 is the 10th anniversary of the introduction at Pittcon of Waters’ Acquity UltraPerformance LC (UPLC) technology. The Acquity system used higher pump pressures to run mobile phase through columns packed with smaller particles, compared with conventional high-performance LC (HPLC) instruments. The design change greatly improved chromatographic speed, resolution, sensitivity, and lab productivity.

According to Waters, Acquity technology has helped scientists provide “new and better medicines, more nutritious and safer food, and better chemistry leading to better everyday materials.” Lucy doesn’t disagree, calling the anniversary “an event worth celebrating.” The 2004 debut represented “a landmark change in the speed and performance possible by LC—and more importantly, in expectations for speed and performance in the HPLC community,” he said. “Today, essentially all HPLC manufacturers offer ultrahigh performance.

“Equally worth recalling is the eighth anniversary of the introduction of 2.7-µm core-shell HPLC particles” by Advanced Materials Technology in 2006, Lucy said. “These particles consist of a solid nonporous core surrounded by a thin porous shell. Core-shell particles were originally designed to reduce band broadening” and also enhance chromatographic efficiency, he said. Lucy noted a number of new manufacturers and new types of core-shell particles at the Pittcon 2014 exposition, suggesting that the technology’s popularity continues to grow, he said.

In addition to celebrating its Acquity anniversary, Waters also introduced an important new product at the meeting—the Aquity QDa Detector, which won the Pittcon Editors’ second-place Silver Award. A single-quadrupole MS detector in a small package, it requires no user optimization, calibration, or adjustment, according to Waters.

“In an Olympic year, we can get so focused on higher, faster, and stronger that we overlook the beauty of greater convenience and simplicity,” Lucy said. The QDa detector “illustrates those characteristics. It is a chromatographer’s view of what a mass spectrometer should be: a simple detector, equivalent to an absorbance or refractive index detector, that I can turn on when I need it and leave off when I don’t and that doesn’t require an MS service lab to maintain. For labs with power reliability or cost issues, the ability to leave an instrument off when not needed and wait just 22 minutes for a single quadrupole to be ready will be of great benefit.”

Lucy also noted this year’s introduction of Crude2Pure, an automated purification and powderization system made by Shimadzu. The instrument uses a separations column to purify compounds from complex synthesis mixtures, nebulizes them, and then recovers them as highly pure powders on a preparative scale. The instrument doesn’t represent “a fundamental change in separation science,” Lucy said, “but it illustrates how HPLCs are evolving from stand-alone instruments into complete operation systems—like the robot-staffed labs envisioned in 1950s science fiction.” Potential applications for the Crude2Pure system include biochemical screening and absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion testing.

Mass spectrometry

 

Mass spectrometrist Gary R. Kinsel of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, said he didn’t see lots of significant new MS products at Pittcon 2014, but he was intrigued by two new systems for coupling separation tools to mass spectrometers.

The Waters ionKey/MS system “is a particularly innovative instrument that combines in a device about the size of a smartphone all the elements necessary to perform UPLC with direct electrospray ionization coupling to a mass spectrometer,” Kinsel said. “The compact device size and ease of connection to the mass spectrometer make the system user-friendly and extremely efficient for sample handling and analysis.”

And the CESI 8000, made collaboratively by Beckman Coulter and AB Sciex, “combines the well-established high-peak-resolving capacity of ultra-low-flow capillary electrophoresis [CE] with an electrospray ionization source for coupling to an MS system,” Kinsel said.

The CESI 8000 won the Pittcon Editors’ third-place Bronze Award. The award citation noted that the instrument is “the first ultra-low-flow electrospray ionization instrument to be available commercially [and] makes the interfacing of capillary electrophoresis and MS easy.”

Giving a chromatographer’s viewpoint on the system, Lucy was enthusiastic about the CESI 8000. “It moves CE/MS from an analytical research topic into an integrated workflow solution,” he said. “I want one.”  

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