Dr. Signe Vahur’s visit to the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute labs!

Dr. Signe Vahur, during her vacation to Washington DC, USA, had the possibility to visit the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute (MCI) labs.

The MCI is the center for specialized technical collection research and conservation for all Smithsonian museums and collections. MCI combines knowledge of materials and the history of technology with state-of-the-art instrumentation and scientific techniques to provide technical research studies and interpretation of artistic, anthropological, biological, and historical objects (webpage: https://mci.si.edu/).

Dr. Asher Newsome, a physical scientist at MCI, kindly showed her the research labs equipped with different analytical instruments (e.g., chromatographs (GC, LC), mass spectrometers, spectrometers (FT-IR, Raman, SEM-EDS)) and labs for conserving paintings, textiles, and paper items. He introduced some of his research work, and they had a good discussion of various analysis options for cultural heritage materials.

This visit was very beneficial and raised new collaboration possibilities in the future. 

ASMS 2023 – Conference on mass spectrometry and allied topics

During June 4-8, 2023, Signe Vahur and Anu Teearu-Ojakäär attended the 71st ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics, held in Houston, USA.

Signe and Anu presenting their poster

At the ASMS conference, Signe and Anu presented their poster “MALDI-MS for the analysis of cultural heritage materials” during the Monday (June 5) poster session.

On Wednesday evening (June 7), Signe was an invited panelist (along with Dr G. Asher Newsome from Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute, USA; Prof Paul Haynes from Macquarie University, Australia; Dr Aleksandra Popowich from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA; Assoc Prof Enrico Cappellini from University of Copenhagen, Denmark; and Assoc Prof Troy Wood from University of Buffalo, USA) in the workshop “Art, Museums, and Archaeology” and had a very interesting discussion with approximately 70 attendees.

Altogether, the ASMS 2023 conference had more than 6300 attendees from all over the World. During four days there were 384 oral presentations (that ran in 8 parallel panels) and 4 presentations by invited speakers; 2939 poster presentations (more than 700 posters per day) and 178 corporate members presenting their products – instruments, labware, sample preparation, software solutions, etc. In addition, there were 50 evening workshops, 49 breakfast seminars, and 16 daily corporate hospitality suits.

All in all, the 71st ASMS Conference was a great experience with a lot of new connections, great discussions, and networking opportunities. Thank you to the organisers of the 71st ASMS Conference for delivering such a high-level event!

Signe talking during the panel session
Signe in the main conference hall

Tris(benzophenoneimino)phosphane and Related compounds

Our group recently published a new article titled “Tris(benzophenoneimino)phosphane and Related Compounds” led by Marta and Agnes.

Marta working in glovebox

In this work, a new group of bases with benzophenoneiminyl (bpi) moiety was synthesized and characterized. A convenient one-pot approach was employed to synthesize the starting compound tris(benzophenoneimino)phosphane (P(bpi)3): benzophenone imine was deprotonated using MeMgCl, followed by its reaction with PBr3 in diglyme. This method offers an alternative for preparing other (amino)phosphanes as well when lithio-intermediates and/or protonated phosphanes are not viable options. P(bpi)3 was subsequently utilized to synthesize a variety of related phosphonium cations and phosphazenes.

Crystals from synthesis

The stability of the resulting phosphonium ylides was assessed through their deprotonation. In certain cases, the bulky substances demonstrated the ability to form P-N heterocycles with adjacent P and N atoms and P=C double bonds which are quite rare and only some representatives of this type of heterocycles have been reported before. The basicities of benzophenone imine, P(bpi)3, phosphonium ylides, and phosphazenes were evaluated experimentally (in MeCN) or computationally (in MeCN, THF, and gas-phase). Additionally, representative X-ray crystallography (XRD) structures were presented and discussed. Although the bpi-compounds are not as strong as many existing bases, they still exhibit considerable basicity and could be employed as reagents to overcome common challenges such as solubility, ion-pairing, lack of UV-Vis properties, and other issues.

 

Conference on Phosphorus, Boron and Silicon

From the 22nd to the 24th of March, Marta attended the 4th International Conference On Phosphorus, Boron and Silicon (PBSi2023) in Berlin.
 
PBSi2023 brought together a wide range of scientists from all over the world who love these three elements and want to share the advances they have made in PBSi chemistry. It was Marta’s (presenting on the picture) first conference and she had the pleasure of giving an oral presentation about her current work on benzophenoneiminyl-substituted novel organophosphorus bases.
 
In her words, it was a great experience from the perspective of science, but it was also exciting to meet new people in her field and create lasting memories, and she hopes that there are many more conferences to come.
 
 
 
 

First prize at the Estonian contest for student research

Elo Joandi (in the picture on the right), a gymnasium student of the Miina Härma Gymnasium, won the first prize at the Estonian Research Council’s contest for student research. Congratulations to Elo and her supervisors!

In her work “Identifying diet based on hair isotopic analysis: a case study of modern and archaeological material” Elo studied the dietary habits of present and past individuals through the stable isotope analysis of hair keratin.

A thorough theoretical work with the literature allowed her to conduct real experiments in our Archemy lab to analyse contemporary and archaeological hair samples. She demonstrated that the nitrogen values are clearly different for vegan and carnivorous people, and that both carbon and nitrogen isotope values change when a person changes their diet from omnivorous to that of a vegetarian one.

Elo’s work is the first of its kind at the University of Tartu, aiming to understand and develop the stable isotope analysis on hair keratin. She demonstrated that the pre-treatment has an effect on the stable isotope values, allowing a better-informed sample strategy for archaeological specimens in the future. Elo’s work is an exceptional example of bridging humanities and natural sciences in the study of cultural heritage.

The research was supervised by Holar Sepp, Helen Semilarski, and by two members of our group – Mari Tõrv and Ester Oras. 

Here you can find more information about the contest and awardees (in Estonian).

 

 

Unified pH – what, why and how?

On March 10, 2023, Ivo Leito presented “Unified pH – what, why and how?” at the Chemistry and Chemical Technology 2023 Vilnius (Lithuania).

Acidity is one of the most critical characteristics of solutions. Its measurement is crucial to understanding and controlling essential processes in fundamental chemistry, industry and living organisms, such as catalysis, extraction, chromatography, processes in micelles/bilayers, etc.

Acidity refers to the activity of the solvated proton and is typically expressed as pH. However, the conventional pH scale is well established only in dilute aqueous solutions at medium pH values. It has severe limitations at extreme values, in other solvents or more complex media where most real-life chemistry occurs. Most importantly, comparing the conventional pH values between different media is impossible because every solvent has its pH scale.

Given the above, a decade ago, the concept of a “unified pH scale” was put forward, defining unified pH via the absolute chemical potential of the solvated proton. The merits of this approach are a strict thermodynamic foundation and direct comparability of values between any media.

In recent years, to a large part thanks to the European Union UnipHied (17FUN09) project, the measurement possibilities have been developed and the concept has now been published as an IUPAC technical report.

The first part of the presentation gave theoretical background and explained the need for unified pH. The second part described the experimental method, and the last part gave an overview of the work done and future perspectives.

 

Prof. Ivo Leito – recipient of the UT teaching staff awards

This year’s recipients of the teaching staff awards in the University of Tartu have been announced. The UT Student Union chose the recipients based on proposals submitted by the students. We are glad to announce that the Faculty of Science and Technology award was given to prof. Ivo Leito!

According to his students, prof. Ivo Leito is an incredibly charismatic and lively lecturer who is a role model for all. In each lecture, he gives real-life examples of how analytical chemistry can be applied to study the environment around us. Using the flipped learning method, he constantly engages students in discussions and creates a safe environment for asking questions. It is worth noting that Professor Leito does not proceed with the lecture until he is convinced that every last person in the room has understood what he has just said. 

In addition to his dedication to educating students in the classroom, he is always available for every student outside of lecture hours. It is not an exaggeration to say that he is available 24/7, even when he is abroad. He takes a genuine interest in the progress and development of every student. Ivo Leito also holds regular meetings with all his students planning to graduate in the spring to see if their thesis is going well and to give advice on how to advance with the task.  

Here is more information about the award and the other recipients. 

Congratulations!

We have a new laser!

At the end of January, our new laser from Quantum Light Instruments (Lithuania) arrived! By now, the laser has been set up in the lab, and the team members have been trained to work with it. Work on the laser-MS project can continue at full speed now. The first laser-MS experiments with the new laser are promising and we hope to get many more good results in the near future.

 

 

The laureates of the Ann Mihkelson’s scholarship have been announced!

Sigrid and Marta-Lisette

This year, the laureates of the Ann Mihkelson’s scholarship are Sigrid Selberg and Marta-Lisette Pikma.

The scholarship was founded in 2011 by Anu Ebbe Mihkelson and its purpose is to support female scientist and doctoral students, especially chemists, with their research or supervision of master’s and doctoral students. We are happy to announce that this year the scholarship was awarded to two young females who are both members of the Chair of Analytical Chemistry – researcher Sigrid Selberg and junior researcher/doctoral student Marta-Lisette Pikma.

Congratulations from all of us to you, Sigrid and Marta!

 

 

 

 

3rd Iberoamerican Conference on Mass Spectrometry

Ernesto and Larissa

Larissa and Ernesto attended the 3rd Iberoamerican Conference on Mass Spectrometry from the 10th to the 15th of December in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

Larissa: “The excellent scientific program provided a wide range of topics, but the topics metabolomics and proteomics in biomarker discovery were of most interest to me. Besides, it was interesting to learn how mass spectrometry is playing a role in unraveling Covid-19. The companies held interesting workshops about their latest instruments and their applications too.

The conference also had amazing after-hours activities. For instance, attendees were able to watch a performance by “Mangueira” (famous Samba school from Rio), a capoeira (Afro-Brazilian martial art) performance as well as a party with live pagode (Brazilian style of music). Moreover, the conference was held in the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro. It was a pleasure to attend an international mass spectrometry conference in my home country.”

Rio de Janeiro
Conference venue

Ernesto: “There were very good talks during the conference, even though the use of mass spectrometry usage in the medical field (including COVID-19 detection) was one of the main topics, the conference also offered excellent presentations in a varied range of areas such as metabolomics, proteomics, natural products, etc.

The new trends and applications of new instrumentation were also shown by the different instrument providers companies during the workshops.
Something that I really liked were the social activities held every day after the conference, for example capoeira performance, live music, etc.
The fact that the 3rd Iberoamerican Conference on Mass Spectrometry took place in Rio de Janeiro, also allowed to the participants to discover a bit of the beauty that a big country like Brazil has to offer.”