Analytica 2022: The Separation Scientists Takeover!

In June, more than 30,000 visitors will converge on the Bavarian capital for Analytica. And on June 21, the Separation Science Working Group of the Society of German Chemists will be serving up a series of chromatography-focused sessions – which I chair – in Hall 5 of the Munich Congress Center. To get the juices flowing, we will ask a provocative question: “Gas Chromatography – boring or is there something new?”

First, Peter Boeker from the University of Bonn, Germany, will update attendees on developments in flow-field thermal gradient gas chromatography – a novel and now commercially available hyperfast GC, which can reduce GC analysis times from 20 minutes to under one minute. I’m fascinated to hear more about Peter’s work in this area, and visitors will have the opportunity to talk to him personally. (The Analytical Scientist has delved into Peter’s world a couple of time, most recently here: https://theanalyticalscientist.com/techniques-tools/hyper-fast-gc)

Following this, Giorgia Purcaro from the University of Liège, Belgium, will give a presentation on a novel coupling of LC with GCxGC-TOF-MS for the analysis of mineral oil contaminants in food (MOSH and MOAH). She will describe a fully integrated and automated platform for qualitative and quantitative purposes, an efficient extraction step using microwave-assisted saponification, and simultaneous extraction of contaminants before LC-GCxGC analysis. This coupling shows outstanding separation performance and high selectivity thanks to TOF-MS detection.

The last lecture in this session will be given by the internationally renowned Philip Marriott from Monash University, Australia. He’ll be making a plea for 2D-GC – showing that a one-dimensional chromatographic analysis just won’t do for certain complex samples. 

After lunch, we’ll be shifting to chromatography coupled to ion mobility-mass spectrometry and asking: Does it have potential? Are there any major challenges? Various industry experts from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waters, Agilent and Bruker will provide the answers. Topics include high field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS), cyclic traveling wave ion mobility (cTIMS), DTIMS, and IM Resolution, and high sample throughput with trapped ion mobility mass spectrometry (TIMS-TOF).

After a caffeine hit, scientists from various universities and research centers will take the stage. David Ruskic from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, will cover modifier-assisted differential mobility spectrometry for qualitative and quantitative LC-MS/MS analysis; David Ropartz from INRAE in Nantes, France, will talk about an application with cyclic traveling-wave IMS coupled with liquid chromatography for isomeric level characterization of oligosaccharides; Stephan Hann from BOKU in Vienna, Austria, will cover drift tube ion mobility as a reference point for measurement standards in IM-MS; and Uwe Karst, from the University of Münster, Germany, will talk about the analysis of adduct formation of proteins and xenobiotics.

We will also present the Eberhard Gerstel Prize for an outstanding publication in the field of separation science; the €3000 prize, aimed at young scientists, rewards originality, significance, and independence.

The sessions promise to be anything but boring, I hope you’ll agree!