GCxGC Symposium

The GC×GC-7 symposium ran concurrently with this year’s ISCC in Riva del Garda, Italy. Speaking with The Column, Philip Marriott of the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia, said it “offered the most comprehensive and thorough GC×GC programme yet assembled.”

“The growth in interest in comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography is well characterized by the total registration for the GC×GC symposium” said Marriott. “There is a clear trend here, matched by the numbers of new groups who are entering the published literature of GC×GC and the perceived increased attention given to this subject.“

According to Marriott this year’s symposium included 30 lectures and 70 posters; these were in addition to the 10 lectures and 15 posters in the main ISCC programme. The papers and posters covered a range of areas where GC×GC is applied, and Marriott mentioned new detection possibilities; integration with odour studies; new implementation strategies; and interpretation of peak capacities and consideration of metrics for orthogonality.

The event also featured a People’s Choice award for the best articulation of the need for use of GC×GC technology. The award went to Chris Siegler, from the School of Chemistry, University of Washington, USA, for a poster on derivatized wild type yeast metabolite sample. This was an unusual poster because it was presented as a 3D image, revealed if you carefully study the poster whilst moving it away.

This story originally appeared in The Column. Click here to view that issue.