A Year in Review: Key Trends in Gas Chromatography for 2024
Gas chromatography (GC) is a cornerstone of analytical chemistry, known for its versatility. At LCGC International, we have actively covered developments in GC through our technical articles, news coverage, conference reports, and interviews with both emerging talents and seasoned experts.
One of the most notable trends is the integration of green chemistry principles into GC, striving for a balance between high performance and environmental responsibility. GC has proven invaluable in food and medical analysis, identifying harmful chemicals that could pose health risks. Notably, it has played a crucial role in detecting banned substances in athletes, safeguarding the integrity of sports. GC is also instrumental in the detection of fentanyl—a potent synthetic opioid—highlighting its importance in combating the opioid crisis, especially when mixed with other drugs like heroin and cocaine.
Below, you will find a sampling of some of our most popular content on GC published in the past year.
Mass detector coupled with GC-MS - Gas Chromatography. Analytical laboratory. | Image Credit: © khaw - stock.adobe.com
Investigating the Influence of Packaging on the Volatile Profile of Oats
Laura McGregor, Meriem Gaida, James Ogden
Investigating the migration of volatiles from food packaging is essential for ensuring the safety, quality, and sensory integrity of food products. Packaging materials that include plastics, adhesives, and inks can release volatiles that migrate into food. These can potentially lead to the contamination and alteration of sensory characteristics, such as taste and aroma. The study of volatiles in complex food matrices such as oats requires advanced analytical techniques because of the low concentrations and diverse nature of these compounds. Traditional methods often lack the sensitivity and chromatographic resolution needed to fully characterize the volatile composition. In this study, six different oat brands were tested using headspace sorptive extraction and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC–TOF-MS). This revealed how various packaging types—cardboard, paperƒ, and plastic—can affect and alter the oats’ volatile profile, underscoring the potential impact of packaging on food quality.
Green Chemistry: What is it (and What Is It Not)? And How Does It Apply to Gas Chromatography?
Nicholas H. Snow
The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry were introduced in the late 1990s and have seen rapidly increasing interest over the past decade. Table I lists the principles of green chemistry along with principles of green analytical chemistry. Since then, the conversation about sustainability and chemistry has slowly grown, and today seems at a fever pitch, as companies are adding sustainability officers, universities are adding curriculum, and chemistry-related processes being updated regularly. In this entry, which was published in our Hot Topics in Gas Chromatography supplement, Snow explores the impact of green chemistry on analytical chemistry and gas chromatography. Further, he briefly reviews relevant literature on green analytical chemistry and begin a conversation on green gas chromatography and the many areas in which gas chromatography-based methods can be made “greener."
Multivariate Design of Experiments for Gas Chromatographic Analysis
Olga Vyviurska
Recent advances in green chemistry have made multivariate experimental design popular in sample preparation development. This approach helps reduce the number of measurements and data for evaluation and can be useful for method development in gas chromatography.
Alasdair Matheson
LCGC International spoke to Doug Raynie about a novel gas chromatography (GC) method incorporating a consumer vape to investigate volatile organic compounds (VOCs) using GC with solid phase microextraction (SPME).
The Use of SPME and GC×GC in Food Analysis: An Interview with Giorgia Purcaro
Will Wetzel
The food analysis industry has benefitted from advanced techniques such as solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and comprehensive multidimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC). SPME allows for high enrichment factors despite the matrix and, when coupled with multidimensional GC instrumentation, allows for outstanding versatility, including in food analysis. Giorgia Purcaro is exploring this technique further. Purcaro teaches analytical chemistry at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech at the University of Liège in Belgium. This month, LCGC International sat down with Purcaro to talk about her team’s latest research in this space.
Caroline Hroncich
Gas chromatography (GC) is an ever-growing field within analytical chemistry. Every day, new and veteran scientists are conducting new experiments with GC-based techniques, and through this, trends can occur. In order to capture the current evolutions being made within GC, LCGC International interviewed various executives from different scientific corporations, including Jim Gearing, Associate Vice President of Marketing, Agilent Gas Phase Separations Division; Massimo Santoro, Group Business Development Director at Markes International; Ed Connor, GC Product Manager at Peak Scientific; and Bruce Richter, Vice President of Research & Development at Restek Corporation.
Detangling the Complex Web of GC×GC Method Development to Support New Users
Kira Fisher, Katelynn A. Perrault Uptmor
Gas chromatography (GC) is generally regarded as the gold standard for analyzing mixtures of volatile and semi-volatile components. More recently, comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC) is becoming increasingly popular for the screening and exhaustive analysis of complex samples in scenarios where one-dimensional GC (1D-GC) peak capacity is limited. GCxGC has vastly increased the ability to properly characterize complex mixtures; this, however, can be daunting for scientists wary of learning new methods on new technology. In this article, Kira Fisher and Katelynn A. Perrault Uptmor work through a simple workflow to develop a GC×GC method for a specific sample upon initial use, with the aim of decreasing the time to accomplish functional workflows for new users.
Fighting Fentanyl: How GC–IR Can Help Detect Fentanyl and Save Lives
Will Wetzel
Fentanyl, which is a synthetic opioid normally used to treat pain in patients following surgery, accounted for more than 71,000 of the 107,000 overdose deaths within the United States in 2021. While it is dangerous on its own, fentanyl becomes more potent when mixed with other drugs, such as heroin and cocaine. It has become vital to detect synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, meaning that scientists have been working on more sensitive technologies to detect these drugs. A study published in the April 2024 issue of the Journal of Forensic Science explored this phenomenon, with Jose Almirall from Florida International University (FIU) describing how fentanyl-related substances (FRS) can be identified using a gas chromatography–infrared (GC–IR) library.
Pittcon 2024: Detecting Nitrosamines Using Gas Chromatography–Electron Capture Detection
Aaron Acevedo
During Pittcon 2024, which was held from February 24–28 in San Diego, California, He Nan, senior scientist at AbbVie, held a lecture on N-nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are carcinogens that can be found in products like processed meats, alcohol, and cosmetics. These substances have been known to potentially cause cancer in the lungs, brain, kidneys, and stomach. The presence of N-nitrosamines in different marketed products has led to multiple recalls, with N-nitrosamines being listed in International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) M7 guidelines as cohort of concern compounds. Though LC–MS has been used for detecting numerous N-nitrosamines, this method does not work best with compounds with poor ionization efficiency. During his lecture, Han gave an overview of the risks associated with N-nitrosamines in pharmaceutical compounds, as well as how to monitor them via gas chromatography–electron capture detection.
Busted: How GC and MS Help Detect Prohibitive Substances in Sports
Will Wetzel
Professional athletes can often feel immense pressure to perform well, which can occasionally lead to cheating. One popular means of doing so is through doping, using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) or experimenting with cocktails of drugs to try and gain a competitive edge over other athletes. However, not only are doping practices prohibited, but they can also come with dangerous side effects, such as hypertension, cardiovascular issues, and liver damage. In a March 2024 issue of the Microchemical Journal, scientists explored how chromatography and mass spectrometry-based techniques have contributed to detecting doping in athletes and why they are the most reliable techniques for this analysis.
Analytical Challenges in Measuring Migration from Food Contact Materials
November 2nd 2015Food contact materials contain low molecular weight additives and processing aids which can migrate into foods leading to trace levels of contamination. Food safety is ensured through regulations, comprising compositional controls and migration limits, which present a significant analytical challenge to the food industry to ensure compliance and demonstrate due diligence. Of the various analytical approaches, LC-MS/MS has proved to be an essential tool in monitoring migration of target compounds into foods, and more sophisticated approaches such as LC-high resolution MS (Orbitrap) are being increasingly used for untargeted analysis to monitor non-intentionally added substances. This podcast will provide an overview to this area, illustrated with various applications showing current approaches being employed.
Analysis of Pesticides in Foods Using GC–MS/MS: An Interview with José Fernando Huertas-Pérez
December 16th 2024In this LCGC International interview with José Fernando Huertas-Pérez who is a specialist in chemical contaminants analytics and mitigation at the Nestlé Institute for Food Safety and Analytical Sciences at Nestlé Research in Switzerland, In this interview we discuss his recent research work published in Food Chemistry on the subject of a method for quantifying multi-residue pesticides in food matrices using gas chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (GC–MS/MS) (1).
Using Chromatography to Study Microplastics in Food: An Interview with Jose Bernal
December 16th 2024LCGC International sat down with Jose Bernal to discuss his latest research in using pyrolysis gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (Py-GC–MS) and other chromatographic techniques in studying microplastics in food analysis.
