cool topics

[willnatalie]

I an in Grad school..after several years in the field, and need to do a manuscript analytical presentation in an seminar class. I am starting my looking for something "cool" to present about and just wanted to see if I could get some ideas.

Will

[tlahren]

I did my seminar topic in 2007 on "Recent Developments in Ionization for Mass Spectrometry." It is interesting now to see how common-place some of the methods are now as other methods are being developed. I think any topic in analytical chemistry would be a good choice but I would think it would be easy to get enough material for recent developments in MS or Chromatography. I would do one or the other as you may lose your audience trying to cover two broad topics. Another technique that I covered a little in my talk was Supersonic Molecular Beam GC-MS (SMB-GC-MS). At the time it was being developed at Tel-Aviv University. Now it is being produced and sold by the creator at http://www.avivanalytical.com. This is still a good topic as it is still not widely known about and the added benefits of it's use are extensive. Dr. Aviv Amirav was gracious enough to provide me with plenty of material to use in my presentation as well as the "OK" to reuse some images etc. in my talk. I do believe that this topic is worth presenting alone. This method has the ability to enhance the power of any analytical lab currently using GC-MS in terms of sensitivity and mass identification.

I hope this helps a little. Also try looking at LC/GC magazine (it's free) for some current trends in chromatography. A lot of time they will have a topic review which may provide you a good start on a topic to present.

Ty

[willnatalie]

Thanks for your reply! Yeah I get the LC.GC magazine as well, its a good read. I will look into the Supersonic beam as that sounds quite interesting.

[Jiri Urban]

And I have to say nothing else than monolithic stationary phases for example their recent application in the separation of smal molecules. Good luck with your presentation , J.

[tlahren]

Jiri,

Interesting you mentioned this topic. A fellow grad student presented this very topic as her graduate seminar. She is from the Czech Republic as well. It is also a very good topic with much still to be discussed.

I am not from a strong LC background (mostly GC and MS) but I am currently running HPLC-ICPMS for As species using a cation exchange column right now. If you know of any applications of monolithic columns for separation of As species both organic and inorganic I would greatly appreciate that information.

Ty

[Jiri Urban]

By quick search I found these but you might already know them:

- general review (with part about monoliths in IC) - P.R. Haddad et al. / J. Chromatogr. A 1184 (2008) 456–473

- separation of arsenic binding proteins and peptides on RP monolith - A.-C. Schmidt, K. Mickein / J. Chromatogr. A 1218 (2011) 280–285

- dual silica monolithic capillary microextraction - Fei Zheng and Bin Hu / J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2009, 24, 1051–1061

If you need more info let me know

J.

PS: best regards to your Czech colleague, maybe I know her, maybe she knows me;)