A Dream Come True: Separation Science at Analytica

“A Dream Comes True: Fantastic News from Analytical Chemistry” focused on cutting-edge techniques in separation science in Hall 5 of the International Congress Center Munich (ICM) International Congress Center Munich (ICM).

Munich is always worth a visit in Spring, and is one of the most beautiful cities in Germany, situated directly on the Alps with its international flair and fantastic beer. Also, the Analytica Conference 2024 took place at the Messe, Munich, Germany, from 9–11 April 2024 and it is definitely worth a visit.

Analytica has been held every two years since 1968 and is recognized as a leading international trade fair for laboratory technology, instrumental analysis and biotechnology. In 2022, Analytica attracted almost 900 exhibitors, 26,500 visitors, and 55,000 square meters of exhibition space (49% of exhibitors and 45% of visitors came from abroad).

Analytica 2024 was accompanied by the renowned Analytica conference, which has set itself the task of bringing together key experts from research, science and industry in one place. The Analytica conference featured 180 lectures in 45 English-language sessions in five lecture rooms between April 9 and 11, 2024.

On April 9th, three consecutive session parts titled A Dream Comes True: Fantastic News from Analytical Chemistry (Part 1 to 3) in Hall 5 of the International Congress Center Munich (ICM) were organized by the Separation Science Division of the Society of German Chemists (GDCh) under my chairmanship.

The first session, A Dream Comes True: Fantastic News from Analytical Chemistry - Part 1, started on 9th April 2024 at 9:30 am with the Eberhard-Gerstel-Prize award. Since 2010, the Separation Science Working Group of the GDCh Analytical Chemistry Division has awarded the Eberhard-Gerstel-Prize every two years for an outstanding publication in the field of analytical separation techniques in an internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journal. The prize is aimed at young scientists and the decisive selection criteria for the award are originality, scientific, methodological or technical significance as well as the independence of the work.

After the award lecture, a presentation from Marleen Vetter from Tofwerk (Switzerland) focused on a newly developed dual-ionization source time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometer that can use both electron ionization (EI) and chemical ionization (CI) simultaneously. The advantages of quasi-simultaneously generated EI and CI mass spectra were emphasized, showcasing improved contaminant identification in complex environmental samples, reduced false positive rates, and increased identification yields compared to standard gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) methods.

Following this, Juan Liang-Schenkelberg from Agilent Technologies (Germany) showed that feed injection can reduce the strong solvent effects in liquid chromatography (LC) or liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC–MS) analysis. This technique mediates the strong solvent effect by infusing the sample into the mobile phase stream. In his presentation, Liang-Schenkelberg gave a comprehensive introduction to Agilent’s approach to feed injection, complemented by application examples from food safety and PFAS analysis.

The next lecture was given by the internationally renowned Tim Causon from BOKU in Austria, who talked about the next-generation structures for lossless ion manipulation (SLIM)-based ion mobility-MS.

The last lecture in this first part of the session was given by Frank Steiner from Thermo Fisher (Germany) about intelligent multi-flow-path solutions for the characterization of biopharmaceuticals.

After a lunch break, which can also be used to visit the poster exhibition, the second part of the session A Dream Comes True: Fantastic News from Analytical Chemistry started at 13:00 and, after a short coffee break, the third part of the session started at 15:00.

In the second session, starting at 12:30, Thomas Bocklitz from the University of Jena (Germany) presented his recent studies on AI-based techniques such as machine learning and deep learning models to solve the inverse problem of optical measurement techniques aimed at standardizing the optical data. Bocklitz discussed studies on how Raman spectra and (spectroscopic) image data can be used to predict higher-level information such as analyte concentrations or diagnostic markers.

This is followed by a presentation by Luigi Mondello from the University of Messina (Italy), who talked about the fascinating world of fast separation using optimized parameters for selecting experimental conditions to increase the speed analysis in gas chromatography. In particular, by maintaining a very high phase ratio (β) with narrow-bore columns, it is possible to preserve the efficiency and the resolution and obtain analysis in less than 2 min.

Robert Plum from the Imperial College in London (UK) gave a talk about the evolution of high-throughput LC–MS to support drug discovery studies. In his presentation, he discussed the advantages that miniaturized LC and high-speed separations have brought to LC–MS-based “omics” and drug discovery and development in terms of quality and sensitivity. Finally, he outlined how emerging technologies such as vacuum-jacketed columns can provide the best of both worlds, in terms of speed and performance.

Tobias Werres from IUTA, Duisburg (Germany) closed the second part of the session with a presentation focusing on fused layer modeling (FLM) and two-photon polymerization (2PP) technologies, showcasing their diverse applications, addressing challenges, and emphasizing the significant impact for a modular lab-on-chip platform by three-dimensional (3D) printing.

After the subsequent coffee break, the third part of the session A Dream Comes True: Fantastic News from Analytical Chemistry was opened by Sebastiaan Eeltink from the Vrije University of Brussel(Belgium) with a presentation about spatial three-dimensional liquid chromatography (3D-LC) and the realization of unparallel resolving power in chromatography within a very short analysis time. The intricate design aspects and prototyping of integrated microfluidic chips for spatial 3D-LC was discussed. Moreover, an innovative robotic approach for interfacing the chip with mass spectrometry detection was presented.

This talk was followed by Derek Stein from Brown University (USA) who will describe a nanopore ion source that delivers amino acid and short peptide ions directly into high vacuum from an aqueous solution. The nanopore source transmits ions with extraordinarily high efficiency, which may open the door to single-molecule proteomic analyses including sequencing about single-molecule protein sequencing with a nanopore ion source.

The final talk was by one of the founders of microfluidics, Takehiko Kitamori from National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan) who discussed his work from a femtoliter MS sample interface to ton/year chemical production by micro- and nanofluidic methods.

I would like to cordially invite you to visit Analytica Munich and the accompanying conference in the future and look forward to stimulating discussions with our speakers.

About the Author

Oliver J. Schmitz has been a full professor at the IUTA, Duisburg, Germany since 2012, and he is the chair of the Institute of Applied Analytical Chemistry. In 2018, Oliver has founded, together with Agilent, the Teaching and Research Center for Separation (TRC) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Prof. Schmitz´s main research area is separation science, with a particular focus on non-target analysis of complex samples, the development of ion sources, the use and optimization of multidimensional LC and GC, ion mobility-mass spectrometry and single-cell analysis. He was awarded the scholar-in-training award of the American Association for Cancer Research in 2003, the Gerhard-Hesse Prize for chromatography in 2013 and the Andrzej Waksmundzki medal award in 2019.

oliver.schmitz@uni-due.de