Best of the Week: Next Generation Peak Fitting, AI in Analytical Chemistry

This week, LCGC International published a variety of articles on the hottest topics in chromatography and beyond. Below, we’ve highlighted some of the most popular articles, according to our readers. Happy reading!

Next Generation Peak Fitting for Separations

M. Farooq Wahab, Troy T. Handlovic

Real-world chromatographic separation often have difficult critical pairs that can fail to resolve under most experimental conditions. Standard advice in such instances is to employ a different column chemistry, design a better gradient, or select a different mobile phase system. Screening conditions to produce a chromatogram without peak overlap consumes costly time and solvents in a busy laboratory. To save time and expensive solvents, an effective alternative to conventional screening protocols or mathematical peak width reduction is called iterative curve fitting. This method does not sharpen the peaks to enhance the chromatographic resolution, but extracts the original shape from overlapping peaks in a complex separation, as if an isolated compound were injected. With this protocol, the profile of each peak, overlapping or non-overlapping, is obtained as if a single component were injected instead of a mixture.

Revolutionizing the World of Analytical Chemistry: The AI Breakthrough

Jerome Workman, Jr.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force across various scientific fields. In analytical chemistry, AI is revolutionizing the approach to complex data analysis and the development of innovative methods for separation science and spectroscopy. AI is being applied for rapid spectroscopic food analysis, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, metabolite profiling using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and many other applications. A recent review by Rafael Cardoso Rial of the Federal Institute of Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil explores this topic with 134 references in the journal Talanta.

Celebrating Roy Lautamo: A “Giant” of GC Column Technology Development

Jerome Workman, Jr.

It is with profound sadness that the editorial staff at LCGC International announce the passing of Roy Lautamo, a cherished friend and esteemed developer of gas chromatography column technology, who succumbed to a heroic battle with thyroid cancer on May 13, 2024. Lautamo was 70 years old. For those fortunate enough to have worked with Lautamo and those who never had the pleasure, he was a genius in the gas chromatography (GC) industry, responsible for numerous technical advancements. Here, we remember his storied career and accomplishments.

Inside the Laboratory: Grinias Research Lab at Rowan University, Part IV – Advice from Students

Patrick Lavery

Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, is home to the Grinias Research Lab headed by James Grinias, a professor in the department of Chemistry & Biochemistry. In this final installment of our miniseries on the Grinias Research Lab, In the video below, graduate students Leah Notarfrancesco, John Boughton, and Christopher Piccolo share tips and insight for the next generation of aspiring separation scientists. This concludes LCGC's visit to Rowan, with more hopefully to follow in the future at other academic institutions.

Reviewing Environmental Applications of Miniaturized Liquid Chromatography Systems

Aaron Acevedo

Thanks to work conducted in industry and academia, miniaturized liquid chromatography (LC) has evolved in various ways since its inception. The first commercialized miniaturized LC products launched in 1987. Since then, small LC systems have become indispensable tools for bioanalytical research. The miniaturization of LC is generally done to increase sensitivity, which is necessary in proteomics to detect low abundant peptides and proteins; other benefits can include improving the efficiency of interfacing with mass spectrometry and the reduction of solvent consumption. This technique is even more important with the widespread use of chemicals, which discharge into the environment and can be hazardous to human health, even at low concentrations.