September 2021

Atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) and electrospray ionization (ESI) are assessed for the mass spectrometry (MS) quantification of pharmaceuticals frequently detected in environmental waters, including antibiotics, beta blockers, and selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Several physical phenomena can lead to asymmetric peak shapes, including heterogeneity of the particle density inside the column, rearrangement of the particles over time, and accumulation of debris at the column inlet frit. This month’s instalment will focus on these potential physical causes.

Professor Harold Monroe McNair, among the original icons of chromatography, passed away on 27 June 2021 at the age of 88. In this tribute to the remarkable man and using his works as a guide, we explore three fundamental areas of understanding in GC, seeing ideas about problems that still challenge gas chromatographers today.

For approximately a decade, 3D-printed columns have been hailed as the future of LC. However, the resolution of typical printing methods has fallen short of the requirements to make an effective analytical or preparative-scale column. In this article, we describe a new 3D-printing method that can create large-volume columns with a feature resolution of 10 μm.

In this column, importance of the knowledge of the fundamental principles underlying sample preparation is emphasized.