During the last several years, the GC market has experienced strong growth in part because of new product introductions, growth in the petroleum sector, and increased opportunities in various geographies. To shed light on and determine the many realities and trends of the current GC instruments market, Strategic Directions International conducted a global survey of gas chromatography (GC and GC-MS) users. The survey was designed for individuals who are currently using a wide array of GC instruments and consumables, including aftermarket software, components, and accessories. The data were collected over the phone and by an internet-based survey. When necessary, the internet survey was followed up with direct telephone interviews of the appropriate respondents to further clarify answers.

Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) is the most widespread tandem technique in the analytical instrumentation industry. In fact, these systems account for the largest installed base of mass spectrometry instruments.

This month, Chromatography Online's Technology Forum focuses on the topic of Gas Chromatography (GC). Joining us for this discussion is Sky Countryman, GC Product Manager at Phenomenex; Gary Harland, Tandem Quadrupole MS Product Manager at Waters; a Team of Experts from Thermo Fisher Scientific; and Tom Gluodenis and Terry L. Sheehan from Agilent Technologies Life Sciences & Chemical Analysis Group.

Science Daily, a website that features news revolving around the sciences, has published an article that describes new chromatographic techniques for the analysis of pesticides and antibiotics in food and beverage samples.

The Pittsburgh Conference has announced that advance registration is now open for Pittcon 2008.

A fast quantitation method for the analysis of N-Methyl Carbamate pesticide residues in vegetables and grains has been developed. High recoveries were obtained for most carbamates screened in all matrices tested at 1 ppb levels. Good linearity of the calibration curves was observed for all analytes, over the range from 1 ppb to 200 ppb levels, with r2 greater than 0.99.

Triclosan is an ubiquitous antibacterial, antimicrobial chemical found in numerous consumer health care products today. This article demonstrates that triclosan can be quantitatively determined in commercial hand soaps using reversed-phase solid-phase disk extraction coupled to quantification using capillary gas chromatography-atomic emission detection while avoiding emulsions.

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are synthetic polymeric materials that mimic immunosorbents. They are widely used as sorbents for solid-phase extraction (SPE). The most common way to synthesize them is bulk polymerization because of its simplicity and versatility. This produces a hard monolith that has to be ground and sieved to obtain particles in the desired size range. However, the partial loss of the materials as fine dusts; the irregular shape of the particles produced and their wide size distribution, have led to a search for different polymerization methods to offset the drawbacks of the bulk polymerization process.

The volatile extraction market consists of three techniques: purge and trap, headspace, and thermal desorption equipment. These systems are often employed as a sampling method for gas chromatography (GC) instrumentation but are also used with IR detectors, electrochemical sensors of electronic noses, and mass spectrometers.