COVER STORY
BETTER THAN EVER
AT PITTCON 2006 Attendance may be slipping, but enthusiasm for new and innovative analytical instrumentation has not waned STU BORMAN, C&EN WASHINGTON
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ITTCON, THE PITTSBURGH CONFERENCE ON ANALY-
tical Chemistry & Applied Spectroscopy, was first held in Pittsburgh in 1950. This year, Pittcon held its 57th meeting in Orlando, Fla., where it delivered on its annual promise to provide a wide range of edifying presentations on analytical chemistry and to introduce a plethora of the latest analytical instruments for research and industry. The 2006 meeting saw the use of innovative technologies to develop instruments that, at least in some cases, are smaller and cheaper, WWW.CEN-0NLINE.ORG
offer higher performance, and are overall just better than ever before. Not to be completely outshone by the novelty of some of the instruments at this year's Pittcon exposition, conference organizers introduced several "firsts" of their own. For the first time this year, Pittcon's technical program began on Sunday afternoon "to reduce overlap with concurrent sessions and with the expo later in the week," said Pittcon 2006 President Kevin J. McKaveney at an opening day press conference. This was the first year the conference provided free wireless Internet access in the convention hall on show days to make it easier for exhibitors and conferees to stay in touch with their work and families. And C & E N / A P R I L 3, 2006
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COVER STORY EXHIBIT
BUZZ
Pittcon, Other Trade Shows May Be Declining In Importance For Small Firms
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xhibitor complaints about Pittcon are one of the meeting's longstanding traditions. But one exhibitor C&EN talked to this year believes Pittcon is becoming less important and less cost-effective for small instrument vendors, which make up the majority of the exposition. "We've been a Pittcon exhibitor for about 27 years, and we've certainly seen a decline over the years," said John B. Lipsky, president of Quadrex Corp., a manufacturer of gas chromatography products. "Attendance is down, and the show is smaller." With the Internet, e-mail, and other modern forms of communication, "it has crossed our minds that the whole concept of a large trade show in this market is becoming a dinosaur," Lipsky said. "We now look at Pittcon more as a businessto-business type of opportunity, where we're meeting with people we're already doing business with to solidify those relationships." Traditionally, Quadrex purchased a 20-foot booth at Pittcon. "This year for the first time, I decided that it just wasn't
for thefirsttime this year, Pittcon also permitted exhibitors to serve alcoholic beverages in their booths "to encourage more interaction," McKaveney said. Starting the technical sessions on Sunday instead of Monday Vorked out very well for us," McKaveney said. "Having a full Sunday program, we saw wonderful attendance for our Pittcon Heritage Award presentation, for plenary speaker Roger Y. Tsien, and our poster mixer afterward, which had the best attendance we've had in years, if not ever." The Pittcon Heritage Award, honoring instrumentation entiepreneurship, is cosponsored by the conference and the Chemical Heritage Foundation. This year's honorée was Masao Horiba, who in 1945 founded Horiba Radio Laboratory while he was still a graduate student at Kyoto Imperial University. Now Horiba Ltd., the company markets analytical and diagnostic equipment and had
worth it and went down to a 10-footer," Lipsky said. "I still had enough space and the same exposure." So the exposition is "becoming a disappointment," Lipsky said. He has asked Pittcon representatives if they would permit his company to opt out of the conference alternate years and still maintain its seniority for booth placement, but so far they haven't agreed. Lipsky noted that many Pittcon organizers are volunteers and "do a good job. But we're a small company, and Pittcon week represents quite an investment for us. I'm sure many other small companies would share my opinion that the return on investment from exhibiting at Pittcon isn't what it used to be." Pittcon 2006 President Kevin J. McKaveney said exhibitor success at Pittcon depends on a number of factors, "such as products of interest to the audience, booth location, and preshow promotion. These factors vary from exhibitor to exhibitor and affect each differently. We do have many small exhibitors who are typically very happy with their results."
isn't orchestrating one of the world's largest scientific conferences. In the educational area, the conference featured more than 100 different short courses and sponsored its annual Science Week program, which includes educational programs and workshops for local science teachers, lectures and demonstrations for students, and grants to support elementary through college science education. The Volusia County School District, in Florida, received this year's Pittcon Science Education Award, a $24,000 grant for equipment for teaching environmental studies. The annual award is made for the best science education proposal by an institution in the Pittcon host-city area. Pittcon, in conjunction with the Peabody Orlando Hotel, also presented a $25,000 grant to the Orlando Science Center to help fund the purchase of a portable digital video globe to extend its educational outreach program. Registration for last year's Pittcon was about 20,900, and "we were hoping for a 10% increase in attendance this year," Mc-
sales of more than $800 million in 2004. Plenary speaker Tsien, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor of pharmacology and of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, spoke on the design of molecules capable of reporting or mediating signal transduction inside living cells. G 0 L D E N SPECTROMETER Front
PITTCON 2006 featured more than 2,300 panel of Thermo Electron's LTQ technical presentations, including 60 in- Orbitrap mass spectrometer, which vited symposia, 114 contributed sessions, 54 won this year's Pittcon Editors' Gold poster sessions, nine workshops, and eight Award. new product forum sessions. "This year, we have a higher concentration in the area of Kaveney said. Instead, there was a falloff, life sciences and pharmaceutical sciences, with tentative registrationfiguresshowing and we're also covering specialized areas of a total of about 19,900, a 5% drop in coninterest like bioterrorism, nanotechnology, ferees and exhibitors. and environmental analysis," said McKa"There was only a 2% drop in conferees veney, who is an executive sales representa- from last year," McKaveney told C&EN. "I tiveforWaters, in Milford, Mass., when he find that very positive. We had an approxi-
Several firms used innovative technologies to develop instruments that are smaller and cheaper, offer higher performance, and are overall just better than ever before. 46
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COVER STORY trometer, and a minitorch that reduces armately 8% drop in exhibitor registrations, Pittcon new product introductions in sevgon gas consumption by half compared with and I believe that is due to exhibitors senderal disciplinary areas. Our adviser in atomic conventional torches, the company says. ing fewer representatives to cut costs and spectroscopy this year is chemistry professor "I like the minitorch," Hieftje said. "But improve their return on investment." Gary M. Hieftje, head of the Laboratory of then I would, since my group introduced Attendance at all conferences has been Spectrochemistry at Indiana University, it many years ago. It offers performance adversely affected by the events of Sept. 11, Bloomington. Hieftje believes most Pittcon equal to that of a larger torch but at lower 2001; increased competition from other atomic spectroscopy offerings this year 'Svere radio frequency power levels and reduced shows; and restricted travel budgets, Mc- evolutionary rather than revolutionary" but argon flow rates." Kaveney said. In addition, there has been "a points to several notable developments. drop in international attendees beVarian introduced 810-MS and 820-MS ICP-mass spectrometry cause of greater difficulty in obtain(ICP-MS) instruments that feature ing visas." For example, the number a new collision reaction interface of registrants from China was about (CRI). "The C R I is indeed new 300 behind last year's. and quite attractive," Hieftje said. "We hit our peak attendance in Unlike the separate collision or re1996, with about 35,000 attendees action cells located just prior to the and exhibitors," he said. "Certainly, MS analyzer in conventional ICPwe feel we have a lot to offer here, MS instruments, "the C R I adds and we want to work to build the atcollision or reaction gases directly to tendance back up. Whether we get the extracted plasma stream in the to those high levels of 35,000 again sampler and skimmer cones leadis hard to say, but I believe we can ing to the mass spectrometer," he do better on attendance." said. Collisions that occur in those Each year at Pittcon, Centcom, zones accomplish the same thing the American Chemical Society's as in conventional cells—reducing advertising management division, and removing interfering species sponsors a breakfast for analytical that would otherwise be extracted instrument industry leaders, and this into the MS unit's ion optics. But the year was no exception. At the 2006 CRI design enables labs "to easily breakfast, Paul R. Knight, a partner MINI MS At the Purdue Discovery Partners booth achieve lower detection limits and at Thomas Weisel Partners, a New at Pittcon, Purdue grad student Liang Gao holds more accurate quantitation for difYork City-based investment bank, the Mini 10 mass spectrometer while it transmits ficult elements in complex samples," told attendees that the life sciences data. The Mini 10 is a miniature tandem mass Varian says. sector was the major growth area for spectrometer complete with power source, sampling instrument sales from 2000 through system, ion trap, and all necessary electronics. The NewWave Research introduced the LIBS-Elite, one of the first com2003, but today sales are instead instrument is close to being commercialized. mercial instruments for lab use of growing fastest in the industrial seclaser-induced breakdown spectroscopy tor: the chemical, energy, environmental, One such development is Thermo Elec(LIBS). The LIBS-Elite includes laser aband food industries. T h e largest market tron's new iCAP 6000 series of inductively lation technology to facilitate elemental driver of all has been growth in sales to Incoupled plasma (ICP) emission spectromanalysis of a variety of materials. In addidia and China (see page 61). "Asia was 11% eters. These are benchtop instruments with tion, it utilizes an open sample cell at atmoof instrument market demand in 2000, and "an unusually small footprint, claimed to be spheric pressure, "which simplifies sample by 2007 it will represent 20-25% of total the smallest in the industry," Hieftje said. handling," Hieftje said. demand," Knight said. Dan Shine, Thermo's vice president for elAnd Cetac Technologies introduced the emental analysis, said the iCAP instruments Aridus II nebulizer system, "useful for both have an innovative design that delivers "enA SECOND SPEAKER at the breakfast, ICP atomic emission spectrometry and hanced productivity and reduced cost of Mike McMullen, vice president and general ICP-MS," he said. "The system is claimed ownership for their users." manager of chemical analysis solutions at to offer better sensitivities and lower oxide Agilent Technologies, said that instrument Also introduced this year was an extension levels in ICP-MS. If present, oxides often industry customers need better analytical to Thermo's S-Series and M-Series atomic aboverlap spectrally with the masses at which solutions to their problems; that is, they sorption spectrometers—the addition of an analyte species lie." need the ability to carry out faster analyses intelligent spectrometer qualification (iSQ) at lower costs and yet obtain higher quality In the chromatography area, "it didn't unit that automatically tests and confirms ininformation. "Our responsibility as instruseem to be a big year for new separations strument performance prior to an analytical ment vendors is to understand our customintroductions at Pittcon" either, said chemrun. "The iSQ module appears to be nicely ers' workflows and to develop automation istry professor James W. Jorgenson of the designed and should be of benefit to highand innovation that help better solve their University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, volume laboratories that need to minimize problems," he said. a specialist in capillary electrophoresis and operator timeforinstrument calibration and capillary liquid chromatography. Several optimization," Hieftje said. Indeed, instrument companies demonintroductions were "largely incremental imstrated some new ways to solve customers' Shimadzu Scientific Instruments' new provements of already introduced technoloproblems at this year's massive Pittcon exICPE-9000 ICP emission spectrometer gies. This year showed solid progress in the position. Each year, C&EN asks academic is equipped with a 1-inch charge-coupled quality and variety of separations tools being researchers to evaluate and comment on device (CCD) detector, an Echelle spec48
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offered, but with no new developments that took your breath away." Jorgenson notes that more manufactur ers were selling high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) columns with sub-2-μιη particle packing material for high-efficiency separations this year. In addition, Wa ters introduced the Acquity SQD, a mass spectrom eter-interfaced version of its high-efficiency UPLC (ultra-performance liquid chromatography) system. And inJanuary, Agilent re leased its new 1200 Series LC system, which uses im proved column and system design to achieve performance advantages: faster analysis time and up to 60% higher resolution than conventional HPLC. Although no major announcements ap peared for lab-on-a-chip instruments this year, evolutionary advances continue to be made in those fields as well, "especially in the overall direction of miniaturization,,, said Z. Hugh Fan, a specialist in microfluidics and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Recent miniaturiza tion successes include Agilent's HPLC chip, a microfluidic device that boosts sensitiv ity and reduces sample size requirements in nanoflow LC-MS of small-molecule and proteomics samples; and Ionchip, a chip-based quadrupole mass spectrometer from Microsaic Systems fabricated using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Things were a bit more lively in the area of molecular spectroscopy this year. Inno vations included Aspectrics, Encoded Pho tometric IR (EP-IR) technology and the launch by Porychromix of Phazir, a portable, handheld near-IR device that's the latest addition to the company's near-IR digital transform spectrometer (DTS) family. "These two companies have brought out different but very interesting new technolo gies for encoding IR spectra, which allows simultaneous observation of the entire IR spectral region with a single detector, a task that normally requires either an interferom eter or an array detector," said professor of chemistry and of geosciences M. Bonner Denton of the University of Arizona, Tuc son. "That means you can sell these instru ments for a whole lot less money than those with conventional IR array detectors or in terferometers," Denton said. His research interests include analytical spectroscopy, optical imaging, and lab automation, and whose group is currently developing a pock
et-sized Raman spectrometer for a future Mars Rover mission. In Aspectrics' EP-IR system, both a grat ing and a rotating encoder wheel are used to encode an IR signal from a sample, and Fourier transform is then used to convert that into wavelength versus intensity data. This tech nology makes it possible to carry out IR-based analysis less expensively. The use ofMEMS spatial light-modulation devices to disperse IR radiation in Polychromix's new hand held Phazir and in the firm's other DTS instruments makes possible "a compact and versatile chemical analysis system at an unprecedented low cost," the company claims. Polychromix currently markets DTS systems for general purpose spectroscopy applications, but it anticipates potential process control uses, rangingfromflue gas monitoring to trans-fat measurements in food analysis. "If one talks about handheld systems, you also want to mention Ahura, which showed
"There was only a 2% drop in conferees from last year. I find that very positive."
a handheld Raman spectrometer that looks to be very powerful," Denton said. "This handheld unit demonstrates high perfor mance levels equivalent to a standard major research instrument." Ahura's handheld in strument, called FirstDefender, is designed to identify unknown liquids and solids under field conditions. According to the company, the system "is built to therigorousrequire ments of the military and optimized to the needs of civilian first responders. It is en tirely self-contained, rugged, lightweight, and easy to use." The Swiss Army knife of imaging tech nology also came out this year. NT-MDT's new NTegra Spectra is a benchtop system that combines atomicforcemicroscopy with conventional optical, fluorescence, laserscanning confocal, and near-field scanning microscopies. It also includes an automated Raman and fluorescence spectrometer that complements the imaging information. Applications include corrosion and poly mer investigations, drug delivery studies, carbon nanotube research, and imaging of single molecules. "It's a really nice system—very impres sive," Denton said. "It has tremendous flex-
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COVER STORY ibility and combines multiple capabilities in a single well-integrated package. It's all modular. You can swap components back and forth, so you can buy what you need and add onto it later. The company had it running and doing really nice things on the show floor." ANOTHER TECHNOLOGY that impressed him at the show was the NIR Analyzer XL, a near-IR spectrometer from Axsun Technologies. "Typical resolutions of affordable near-IR spectrometers are in the tens of wavenumbers, whereas Axsuris system has 0.1-wavenumber resolution," Denton said. "The company is taking techniques that would conventionally be used to make integrated circuits and using them to make optical components instead. I think this approach is going to revolutionize how optical spectrometers are built in the future." Things were cooking in the MS area this year as well. One Pittcon 2006 highlight was Thermo Electron's LTQ Orbitrap mass spectrometer, "the first totally new mass analyzer to be introduced to the market in more than 20 years," according to the company.
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The Orbitrap design was patented in 1999 (U.S. patent 5,886,346) and was first described in detail in a scientific journal six years agp (Anal. Chem. 2000,72,1156). The Orbitrap "has ions spinning around a carefully shaped central electrode while shuttling back andforthover its long axis in harmonic motion at frequencies dependent only on their mass-to-charge ratios," explained professor of analytical chemistry R. Graham Cooks and associate research scientist Zheng Ouyang ofPurdue Urirversky, who commented together by e-mail on MS new products. Cooks's group specializes in MS fundamental phenomena, instrumentation, and analytical applications, and Ouyang has been responsibleforthe construction of a number of new types of mass spectrometers. Thermo's LTQ Orbitrap is a hybrid instrument in that it combines the Orbitrap analyzer with a linear ion-trap analyzer, the Finnigan LTQ. According to the company, this design enables faster and more sensitive detection of compounds in complex mixtures than with conventional mass spectrometers. The instrument's "outstanding mass accuracy, mass resolution, and {high sensitivity] make it a clear alternative to existing hybrid time-of-flight systems," Thermo says. Media representatives vote on what they believe to be the most significant new products at Pittcon each year, and the LTQ Orbitrap won thefirst-placePittcon Editors' Gold Award this year. Cooks and Ouyang pointed out that the LTQ Orbitrap's performance is comparable to that of a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer and would be attractive to FT-ICR users because it's cheaper to maintain. "It would also be attractive to quadrupole time-of-flight users due to the relatively small additional cost to obtain higher resolution and better mass accuracy together with more stages of tandem MS," they noted. Cooks and Ouyang also liked two new tools for ion dissociation in ion trap instruments—Thermo's Pulsed-Q Dissociation (PQD) and Agilent and Bruker's implementations of electron transfer dissociation (ETD) fragmentation. PQD is a newfragmentationtechnique for protein analysis that eliminates the lowmass cut-off for ion traps. "Using Thermo's PQD method, fragments with mass/charge ratios below one-third those of precursor ions can be observed in ion trap mass spectra," whereas they cannot be efficiently observed with conventional ion trap instruments, Cooks and Ouyang said. "This capability resolves a perceived difficulty and in some cases a real disadvantage with ion traps." With PQD, "the intensity of frag-
ments is increased, too, since more energetic excitation conditions are accessed, leading to better recognition of peptides." ETDfragmentationis also designed for protein analysis. 'The ETD experiment was first reported a year ago and has been introduced in commercial ion trap instruments
TINY MS Microsaic Systems uses MEMS technology to construct lonchips like the one shown, lonchips, integrated components that combine an ion source, mass analyzer, and detector, are the main working units in the company's portable quadrupole mass spectrometers.
by Agilent and Bruker," Cooks and Ouyang noted. "ETD provides a unique mode of fragmentation that generates highly characteristicfragmentsand eases the analysis of peptides and proteins bearing functionally important modifications, such as phosphorylation and glycosylation. "The overall weight of mass spectrometers is one of their disadvantages, severely limiting in situ applications of this premier analytical method," Cooks and Ouyang said. "The past decade has seen increasing emphasis on small analytical instruments, including mass spectrometers." At least three portable MS systems emerged at this year's Pittcon. One of them was Microsaic Systems' Ionchipbased quadrupole mass analyzer, which Fan also mentioned as a miniaturization advance. Microsaic uses MEMS technology to construct its Ionchip, an integrated component that combines an ion source, mass analyzer, and detector. Ionchip technology is based on research conducted in the past decade or so by professor Richard Syms, head of an optical and semiconductor devices research group at Imperial College London. Microsaic's Ionehip-based mass spectrometers can fingerprint compounds in solid, liquid, or gas samples. "Ionchip technology makes it possible for customers to buy a personal analyzer and use it just like any per-
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sonalœπφuteΓper^Jleral,,, said Alan Finlay; Microsaic's chief executive officer. At Pittcon, the company launched two Ionchip-based instruments targeted at lab and security applications: the Ionchip ChemCube personal sample analyzer and the Ionchip ChemPack, a waterproof, rugged, battery-powered system designed for field use. The systems have electron impact ionization sources, near-unit mass resolution, and lowparts-per-billion detec tion limits in favorable cases, Cooks and Ouyang noted. Griffin Analytical Technologies pre sented the handheld GCAT 600 mass spectrometer, based on a cylindrical ion trap (CIT). The CIT incorporates much smaller vacuum systems and power electronics than those required in conventional MS systems. "The self-contained instrument has a direct air sampling interface and tandem MS capa bility and is intended for networked pointdetection applications, such as perimeter security and depot monitoring," Cooks and Ouyang said. And Purdue University's Discovery Park, a commercial incubator center, dem onstrated the Mini 10, a handheld mass spectrometer with tandem MS capabili ties that was developed and constructed in Cooks's group by a teamfedby Ouyang. The Mini 10 is about the size of a shoebox and weighs only about 10 kg. Its development was funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security, and it is accurate and fast enough to be used for airport security and homeland security as well as environ mental and forensic applications. OTHER SIGNIFICANT Pittcon MS develop ments this year included the introduction of Thermo's DFS double-focusing sector mass spectrometer, "the first double-sec tor instrument that can be shipped in one piece and set up within one day," Cooks and Ouyang said, and Variant new CRI interfaceforICP-MS, which also was men tioned by Hieftje. There were two other top Editors' Awards this year, in addition to the Gold Award to the LTQ Orbitrap. The Editors' Silver Award went to Chem+Mix, a system for automated solution preparation by Chata Biosystems. Chem+Mix facilitates the preparation of buffers or mixed or ganic solvents in volumes from 200 mL to 2 L. The system is compatible with virtually any analytical instrument that requires preblended reagent mixtures. The Editors' Bronze Award went to MassWorks from Cerno Bioscience, a data acquisition software package for MS. It uses a calibration algorithm to improve
mass accuracy, enhance noise filtering, and improve quantitation. At the opening-day Pittcon press confer ence, Beth L. Kirol, PPG Industries tech nical manager and Pittcon 2007 president elect, noted that Pittcon organizers had earlier announced their decision to move Pittcon 2007 from New Orleans to Chi cago. "The move was a very difficult deci sion," she said. "It was made after months of very careful consideration of all the feetors involved and exhaustive debate.... The
conference remains committed to returning to New Orleans in 2008." McKaveney added that Pittcon 2006 shaped up to be "awonderful show, and I think that will carry over into Chicago next year. We're lookingforwardto being there" •
H0RE ONLINE See a photo of Japan's first gas chromatograph, a 50-year-old instrument exhibited at Pittcon by Shimadzu, at www.cen-ontine.org.
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