Another meeting. Minnesota Chromatography Forum

On October 19th, I attended the meeting of the Minnesota Chromatography Forum(MCF). I had heard of this group-I know the secretary, and a past secretary-but never made it before. Part of why I felt I had to quit doing roller derby was not having time to do this sort of networking much. Which was fine, until I got laid off. The meeting schedule is still available online. Dr. Stevens was a very dynamic and interesting speaker, and I always like learning new widely applicable techniques. QuEChERS, Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe methodology does sound like a very widely applicable dream come true for a lot of industrial scientists. I won't go into the details of the chemistry here as I didn't get a chance to ask exactly what I can and can't put out in public. The method is relatively new-this millenium-but seemed to be very widely applicable, and very accurate. You can use a variety of types of analysis, mostly GC, LC or mass spec. There were some different formulations for different specific instrumental or sample conditions. The environmentalist in me always gets a little nervous when I see packs recommended with disposable reactionware, but I know that is an easy way to make things cleaner and to have less variation in cleanup and sample prep, so I can see why that was done. I have to admit, overall, I felt a little like I had come for a talk, and gotten a commercial, in a way that I usually don't even at other mostly industrial meetings, like the Society for Cosmetic Chemists. I am still very interested in the MCF though, and looking forward to taking a class from them in early December about HPLC.

HPLC

Ha. Maybe I will post this month. Though it's older-from last September. I was working at a company I've been at before, though this time doing HPLC as well as ICP. Very exciting, I've wanted to do HPLC. Also, it seems like the wave of the future. I'm analyzing amino acids, using pre-column derivitization. it's pretty cool, actually.
However, that instrument is being a little punk this week. Already, I've changed column and pre column, had to totally replace one solvent bottle due to algae growth, and deal with blockages, since it looks like I didn't get it totally in time. Very frustrating. However, I am already getting to be so much more confident on that instrument.
My favorite things about the technique so far-
1. Getting an appreciation of just exactly how high pressure 200 bar really is. If it's not 100% lined up and tightened there are leaks. and I get to see them. really fast. They aren't lying when they say high pressure.
2. automatic mixing-really most forms of automatic chemistry-is also just really fun.
3. Pretty chromatograms. I do get very pretty peaks-symmetrical, thin, and no tails. I like success.

What I don't like about this technique-
leaks, blockages, anything else. See above.