A system that rocks

The GCMS-QP2010 Ultra European Conferences Tour 2010

The new GCMS-QP2010 Ultra had its worldwide premiere on the Riva conference in May 2010. This event, officially called the “34^th International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography”, is the most prestigious international conference for gas chromatography. More than 700 participants from all over the world were attending this year. Every second year the conference series takes place in Riva del Garda, Italy, hence the name “RIVA conference”, every other year outside Europe, mostly in US. The RIVA conference 2010 was held jointly with the 7^th GCxGC Symposium. GCxGC (also called comprehensive 2D-GC) is a rapidly growing GC technique for the analysis of very complex samples especially those of natural origin, i.e. food, petrochemical, environmental or clinical samples, and is generally viewed as the most important new development in gas chromatography in recent years.

Figure 1: 48^th Annual Meeting of the International Association of Forensic Toxicologists (Bonn, Germany)

Lectures and presentations on the pacesetting GCMS-QP2010 Ultra

The new GCMS-QP2010 Ultra attracted a lot of attention. Its extraordinary high scan speed makes the system the only quadrupole MS on the market suitable for GCxGC analysis using a normal mass range. The patented ASSP technology (Advanced Scanning Speed Protocol) maintains system sensitivity, even at ultra-fast scanning (20,000 amu/sec) without any peak skewing being observed.

Results obtained using Shimadzu’s new GCMS-QP2010 Ultra were also presented in the conference by Prof. Mondello and his co-worker Dr. Giorgia Purcaro in the lecture “New Frontier in Ultra Fast GC/MS. Rapid Quadrupole Technology (20,000 amu/sec) for Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis”. At the end of the conference, Giorgia Purcaro was awarded with the important Leslie S. Ettre Award for her outstanding results and presentation covering “Extending the Realm of Qualification and Quantification in Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography to Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry”.

Figure 2: 28^th International Symposium on Chromatography (Valencia, Spain)

Overall, Shimadzu was present with five lectures in the conference program (four by Prof. Luigi Mondello, Prof. Paola Dugo and co-workers), one lecture by Mrs. Susanne Böhme (Shimadzu Europa GmbH) and eleven poster presentations (nine from the University of Messina, one from the University of Wuppertal and one from Shimadzu Corporation).

The GCMS-QP2010 Ultra was also the main topic in the Shimadzu company seminar where Dr. Margit Geissler (Shimadzu Europa GmbH) and Dr. Giorgia Purcaro from the University of Messina presented the features of the new instrument and recent results for fast GCMS and comprehensive 2D-GC with quadrupole MS detection measurements.

International press conference

In a separate event, the newly launched GCMS-QP2010 Ultra was introduced to a group of international editors from leading publications. At the booth, they could get all relevant in-depth information as well as details of the system’s outstanding performance.

The following press conference covered international market topics presented by Shimadzu’s European and North-American product managers. Shuichi Kawana, Developing Engineer from the R+D department at Shimadzu Corporation, highlighted the extraordinary features of the new instrument. Following these presentations, Prof. Mondello explained the benefits of the new instrument from the perspective of a high-end user.

Figure 3: 34^th International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography (Riva del Garda, Italy)

Comprehensive 2D-GC in routine applications and food analysis

In August 2010, a new application demonstrating the use of comprehensive 2D-GC for drug screening in a routine clinical laboratory using the new GCMS-QP2010 Ultra gained a lot of attention during the TIAFT conference (“48^th Annual Meeting of the International Association of Forensic Toxicologists”) and Joint Meeting with the Society of Toxicological and Forensic Chemistry (GTFCh) in Bonn, Germany.

In September (September 12-16, 2010), the ISC conference in Valencia (“28^th International Symposium on Chromatography”) attracted participants working with gas and liquid chromatography. The new GCMS-QP2010 Ultra was one of the main attractions, together with the new Shimadzu LC series Nexera. A company seminar as well as a lecture in the scientific program presented by Shimadzu’s Dr. Hans-Ulrich Baier entitled “Comprehensive GCxGC qMS for pesticides with QuEChERS: qualitative and quantitative analysis with an Ultra-fast quadrupole mass spectrometer” showed the advantages of the new GCMS-QP2010 Ultra.

A few days before, at the ISSS conference (16^th International Symposium on Separation Sciences), chromatographers gathered in Rome. The GCMS-QP2010 Ultra was covered in three presentations by Prof. Mondello and Dr. Purcaro from the University of Messina and Dr. Geissler (Shimadzu Europa GmbH) on food analysis, e.g. analysis of cis/trans fatty acid methyl esters with comprehensive 2D-GC with quadrupole MS detection. Two poster presentations from the University of Wuppertal group of Prof. Oliver Schmitz were presented:

“Combination of chemical and electron-impact ionization with GCxGC qMS for characterization of fatty alcohol alkoxylate polymers in the low molecular weight range up to 700 Da”

“Comprehensive two-dimensional chromatography (LCxLC and GCxGC) of extracts from Matcha tea and Radix Angelicae sinensis”

They showed how comprehensive 2D-GC with quadrupole MS detection and comprehensive LC can provide more insights into complex samples from application areas as different as polymers, tea and plants, the latter being used in formulations of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

In late September, the “12^th International Symposium on Advances in Extraction Technologies” attracted experts to Poznán, Poland. About 40 participants discussed with Shimadzu the benefits of the new GCMS-QP2010 Ultra in the lunch seminar and on the booth, both organized by Shimadzu.