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.