10 July 2019
What’s new in the world of GCxGC?
For the past 16 years, the GCxGC Symposium has been held in conjunction with the International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography (ISCC) – held in Europe (Riva de Garda) and USA on alternate years. This year, the event returned to Fort Worth for the so-called ‘Riva In Texas’.
One of the main themes of this year’s meeting was the choice of modulator for GCxGC. Unlike at previous meetings, there was a much more balanced representation of both thermal and flow modulators, with delegates and vendors on both sides arguing their merits.
Recent improvements in the performance of flow modulators, as well as commercialisation by multiple vendors, has seen their uptake increase dramatically. With novel configurations, such as pulsed flow modulation which was demonstrated by the Synovec group at Washington University, this trend is only set to continue.
One key argument for flow modulation is the migration of GCxGC from research to routine applications. Presenters, including Dr Chris Siegler from Dow Chemical, mentioned the need for simple, cryogen-free systems within quality control labs – which clearly gives flow modulation an edge.
Analysis of cannabis
A trending topic amongst delegates and vendors alike was the analysis of cannabis. Recent changes to legislation in USA and Canada has created a major boom in this industry. Not only did the GCxGC Symposium feature an entire session on cannabis testing, Dr Simone Rochfort from Agriculture Victoria Research in Australia gave an excellent Keynote Lecture on “The Cannabis Metabolome”, showing how their group uses an ‘omics’ approach to collate information on cannabis “from genome to phenome” using an array of analytical techniques.
Despite the increased number of presentations on this topic, no two were alike, with many different aspects of cannabis testing being discussed – from potency to pesticide content, smoke analysis and our own contribution on terpene profiling. With so much to cover, it’s clear that cannabis testing is set to be a dominant topic for years to come.
Multi-hyphenated systems
In my own talk, I demonstrated the use of high-capacity sorptive extraction with GCxGC-TOF MS/FID/SCD to obtain extra dimensions of information for the aroma profiling of hops, beer and wine. I demonstrated the ability to screen high-loading components by FID; obtain a comprehensive chemical fingerprint by TOF MS and target unpleasant sulfur compounds using SCD.
If you missed the presentation, click here to listen to an on-demand recording
SepSolve posters at ISCC/GCxGC 2019
SepSolve also presented a number of posters, on various topics, at the conference:
- A flexible analytical platform for the discovery of biomarkers of disease
- Simplifying GCxGC – Streamlined software for fast characterization of petrochemicals
- Improving confidence in the quantitative analysis of cannabis terpenes using flow-modulated GCxGC–FID
- Comprehensive aroma profiling of hops by high-capacity sorptive extraction with TD–GCxGC–FID/TOF MS/SCD
- Tandem Ionisation for improved characterisation of fragranced products
- Flavour profiling of e-cigarette liquids by GC–TOF MS
If you'd like copies of these posters they can be downloaded directly on completion of the form below.
Dr Laura McGregor has a background is in analytical forensic science, and her Ph.D. (at the University of Strathclyde, UK) focused on the chemical fingerprinting of environmental contamination using GCxGC−TOF MS. Following roles in application support and product marketing for Markes International’s TOF MS and software portfolios, she joined SepSolve in October 2017, where she oversees marketing activities across the full product range.