Webinar “Mobile Phase pH in Liquid Chromatography” on April 29, 2021

It is well known that in liquid chromatography, mobile phase pH is an important parameter, significantly affecting the retention of acidic and basic analytes. Yet, mobile phase pH is tricky to measure because mobile phases are usually aqueous-organic mixtures and in the case of gradient elution mobile phase composition gradually changes during elution.

Mobile phase pH is the topic of an upcoming webinar “Mobile Phase pH in Liquid Chromatography”, which we will organise on 29.04.2021 at 13:00 – 16:00 (Central European time: France, Germany, …) via the Zoom platform. Registration to the webinar is now open at this registration link.

The topics that we plan to cover are:

— Different possibilities to express pH in liquid chromatography (LC)
— Unified pH (pHabs): the concept and measurements methods
— The applications and limitations of different pH expressions in LC

The webinar is organised in the framework of the project 17FUN09 “UnipHied”, which is funded from the EU’s EMPIR programme, co-financed by the Participating States and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

 

 

 

 

 

Measurement Uncertainty online course: 925 participants from 97 countries!

On Tuesday, March 23, 2021, the web course Estimation of Measurement Uncertainty in Chemical Analysis was launched for the eighth time as a MOOC (Massive Online Open Course)!

Currently, 925 participants from 97 countries are registered – the largest audience the course has ever had! In the map present above, the orange color marks the countries with stable participation: these countries were presented in our course last year, and so are today. The yellow color denotes the countries where we, unfortunately, do not have participants this year. The green color corresponds to the countries where we did not have participants last year, but are present now. True, the map is coarse and some countries are small. Therefore, not all countries are visible. However, altogether 15 countries are added this year!

The full course material is accessible from the web page https://sisu.ut.ee/measurement/uncertainty. The course materials include videos, schemes, calculation files and numerous self-tests (among them also full-fledged measurement uncertainty calculation exercises). In order to pass the course, the registered participants have to pass six graded tests and get a higher than 50% score from each of them. These tests are available to registered participants via the Moodle e-learning platform.

This course is run under the umbrella of the Estonian Center of Analytical chemistry and forms a part of the measurements and chemical analysis related master programmes at UT: Applied Measurement Science and Excellence in Analytical Chemistry.

 

Aminoacridines as matrix materials for the analysis of complex samples in MALDI(-)-MS

A highly interdisciplinary study ranging from computational chemistry to cultural heritage has now been published – Experimental and Computational Study of Aminoacridines as MALDI(-)-MS Matrix Materials for the Analysis of Complex Samples, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 2021.  

9-aminoacridine (9-AA) is a well-known matrix material used for the MALD(-)-MS analysis. Among the other monoaminoacridines (AAs), only 3-AA has been tested once (in our cultural heritage workgroup) but the suitability of the other AAs was unknown.

To fill this gap, the capabilities of all five AAs were studied by analysing different materials (stearic acid, colophony resin, dyer’s madder, and a resinous sample from a 16th-century shipwreck). Also, a vast range of properties for these aminoacridines were experimentally or computationally characterized (including UV-Vis absorption and fluorescence spectra, proton transfer reactions, crystallization). 

The results demonstrated, that all the AAs are suitable for the MALDI(-)-MS analysis of these materials. Interestingly, 3-AA and 4-AA outperformed the other AAs (including the best-known 9-AA) and were the preferred matrices for the analysis of samples studied in this work.   

 

 

Registration is now open: Measurement Uncertainty online course starts exactly in one month!

The 2021 edition of the web course (MOOC) Estimation of Measurement Uncertainty in Chemical Analysis will be running from March 23 to May 4, 2021. Registration is now open!

The full course material (as well as the registration link) is accessible from the web page. The course materials include videos, schemes, calculation files, and numerous self-tests (among them also full-fledged measurement uncertainty calculation exercises) and examples. Almost all areas of analytical chemistry are addressed, ranging from simple titrations to sophisticated instrumental analysis, such as determining pesticide residues by LC-MS.

In order to pass the course, the registered participants have to take six graded tests and get a higher than 50% score in every graded test. These tests are available to registered participants via the Moodle e-learning platform.

Participants who successfully pass the course will get a certificate from the University of Tartu. A digital certificate of completion is free of charge. A certificate of completion on paper can be requested for a fee of 60 euros.

You are welcome to distribute this message to potentially interested people!

LC-MS Method Validation online course finished with 28% completion rate!

Altogether 791 people were registered from 86 countries. 338 participants actually started the course (i.e. tried at least one graded test at least once) and out of them 221 successfully completed the course. The overall completion rate was 28%. The completion rate of participants who actually started the studies was 65%. All statistics during the five years can be found in the table below.

Year No of registrations No of countries Active participants Completion rate: Overall Completion rate: Participants who started studies
2017 303 61 224 55% 75%
2018 424 71 236 37% 67%
2019 426 70 227 29% 55%
2020 515 77 267 31% 60%
2021 791 86 338 28% 65%

Both the overall completion rate, as well as the completion rate of those participants who actually started the course have stabilized. The latter completion rate can be considered very good by any measure. As has been the usual case with our online courses, the questions from the participants were often very interesting, often addressed things that are really important to analysts in their everyday work. Such discussions made teaching this course a great experience also for us, the teachers!

We want to thank all participants for helping to make this course a success!

We plan to repeat this course again in Autumn-Winter 2021-2022.

Software to monitor the price of electricity

One of our former group members, Dr. Karl Kaupmees, used to apply programming to chemistry. Now he has moved on to GridIO to develop software that could be used to monitor the price of electricity.

As it is said in the article, we are used to turning on home appliances when we need them to work. However, it would be more efficient if we could heat our house and charge our electric car when it is the least expensive. The company GridIO is working on a device that could solve this problem and make the home appliances “smart”. 

We wish you the best of luck in your new challenges!

Archemy: a brand new interdisciplinary research lab launched at the Chair of Analytical Chemistry

Archemy is the first archaeochemistry lab in the Baltics where archaeology meets with chemistry, geology, biology, medicine, genetics, material sciences, etc. Our group works in archaeological sciences, especially biomolecular archaeology, with a major focus on ancient dietary and health reconstructions, migrations, and provenance studies. Archemy has wide expertise in material culture studies, human osteology, zooarchaeology, and archaeobotany. Our lab is located at the Chair of Analytical Chemistry Ravila 14A-4011. You can read more about us and our work on our website and follow us on our Archemy lab FB page, or contact us at archemy@ut.ee.

Cultural heritage workgroup started with new PRG project!

We are happy to announce that Dr. Signe Vahur’s Personal Research Funding Team grant (PRG) project got funded!

Yesterday, on the 5th of January was the first meeting with the team members of her new PRG project. The main aim of this project is the development of a new MS system for the analysis of cultural heritage objects. This project is highly interdisciplinary, as it brings together researchers from natural sciences (analytical chemistry, physics, engineering) and humanities (conservation science, art history, archaeology). The duration of this project is 5 years.

We will keep you posted with new developments of this very demanding and interesting project!

 

LC-MS Method Validation web course: 788 participants from 86 countries!

On Tuesday, November 24, 2020 the web course LC-MS Method Validation created and organised by our group was launched for the fifth time as a MOOC (Massive Online Open Course). There are 788 registered participants (the largest number ever in this course) from 86 countries, ranging from Bangladesh to Belize and from Sweden to Togo. The image on the left shows the countries where the participants come from.

This is a practice-oriented on-line course on validation of analytical methods, specifically using LC-MS as technique. The course introduces the main concepts and mathematical apparatus of validation covers the most important method performance parameters and ways of estimating them. The LC-MS validation course is delivered by a team of 8 teachers, each with their own specific area of competence. This way it is expected to offer the best possible knowledge in all the different subtopics of analytical method validation.

The full set of course materials is accessible from the web page https://sisu.ut.ee/lcms_method_validation/. The course materials include videos, schemes, calculation files, and numerous self-tests (among them also full-fledged calculation exercises). In order to pass the course, the registered participants have to take all tests and get a higher than 50% score from each of them. These tests are available to registered participants via the Moodle e-learning platform. Participants who successfully pass the course will get a certificate from the University of Tartu.

Estonian National Heritage Board award to Ackermann project!

The members of the Estonian Centre for Analytical Chemistry (including members from our group) have been partnering with art researchers for years in various interdisciplinary projects. One of the first projects for Rode altar in Niguliste church won many awards and the latest collaboration continues that tradition when on the 14th of October Estonian National Heritage Board awarded the team of Ackerman as the best research team!

Congratulations to everybody!

NB! The final exhibition will be in the Niguliste church and available for everybody starting on the 6th of November. It is a unique chance to see the sculptures from the same sculptor that have spent their time in various Estonian churches and never seen each other.