Chromatography Forum

Truthfully, homogeneity was not at the top of my list of concerns. Analytically, I suspected the 'solids' would not absorb toluene in any large amount.

But Rafael Chust's bug detector is 'special' in any regard, and you have to appreciate rotten fish to appreciate his dedication to his science in his tale of strange analysis.

I bow to his dedication.

Rod

Why the **** didn´t I choose that education in architecture instead of spending 5 years to study chemistry??

*thought of a student when reading about all your horrible analyzes*

Just heard of another high level yuk analysis,
a collegue of mine was recollecting her early days in analytical chemistry of about 20 years ago when she had to routinely perform analysis on samples of urine from plant workers on the site. It was considered acceptable practice to sample the jars of urine using a pipette with the suction provided by mouth.

GC guy

I'm too young to have ever seen someone pipette by mouth, and I wonder why anyone ever did it. Safety concerns aside, it seems like using a simple rubber bulb (not even the fancy kind with the little ball valves in them) would be easier because you can more easily see what you are pipetting. Were rubber bulbs not available in those days?

They were available, but they weren't free. Then OSHA came along...

I don't see a problem with pipetting with your mouth. You just have to practice a little, before you try concentrated sulfuric acid....

(Only kidding, of course!)

Ok, here we go.

1. Screening for explosive traces on a demilitarised firing range beach by TLC. The only positive results, it turned out, were from pyrotechnics used on a Doctor Who episode filmed on the beach.

2. Compressed headspace samples of docked naval ships' sewage tank headspace by GCMS. Samples were taken at various times. Fri and Sat nights showed strange increases in ethanol content.

[quote="gcguy"]Further to Uwe Neues reply, we were once troubleshooting a gc in our QC lab. A very noisy baseline had us a bit baffled until we stripped the FID and found a small moth sitting on top of the jet.

We once found a piece of ceiling tile on the FID jet.

Working in a contract troubleshooting lab I have had some very strange requests, most of which I manage not to have to follow through on:

Analyse someone's tap water to make sure that termite treatment was not getting into it through the walls of the iron water pipes.

A woman who wanted to know where she could buy "organic" hydrogen peroxide.

Not a chromatographic analysis; we got a foreign body in a bottle of soft drink that turned out to be a piece of half=chewed apple that someone had spat back into the bottle.

More than once I have had women ask me to alalyse for traces of perfume on their husband's trousers.

The longer you are in this business the crazier it gets !