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The Pittsburgh Conference Blows into the Windy City
T
he annual gathering devoted to new developments in analytical instrumentation and associated materials, known as t h e Pittsburgh Conference and Exposition on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (or simply Pittcon), celebrated i t s 4 2 n d y e a r t h i s M a r c h in Chicago. And once again, it was quite a bash. Although attendance dipped from last year's record number in New York City, almost 30,000 visitors and more t h a n 960 exhibitors generated plenty of activity. Traditionally, Pittcon is t h e place where instrument companies unveil their newest products and highlight their hottest devices. To t h e extent that it is possible to generalize, this year the spotlight fell on software. A p l e t h o r a of companies, including such mainstays a s Dow Chemical, Hewlett-Packard, Perkin Elmer, and Varian, offer sophisticated software packages t h a t are able to run instruments, acquire and manipulate data, and prepare reports. Most of these systems are designed to be connected through a local area network (LAN) to different i n s t r u m e n t s a n d PCs, communicating with otherwise i n compatible operating systems. The a c c u m u l a t e d d a t a c a n t h e n be dumped into a central mainframe computer with a laboratory informa-
tion m a n a g e m e n t system (LIMS). For instance, PE Nelson's new Turbochrom 3 can handle up to 15 chromatographs. Because most of us have trouble r u n n i n g one, let alone 15, instruments simultaneously, a userfriendly system is essential. These software packages feature graphics of the type that first endeared users to t h e Macintosh and that h a s r e cently become available to t h e IBM crowd. Manufacturers also claim that once these systems are set up for operation they can r u n analyses unattended, allowing instrument labs to operate around the clock. The focus on software is not surprising for an industry whose customers a r e involved with t h e carefully r e g u l a t e d e n v i r o n m e n t a l , pharmaceutical, a n d food products markets. In addition to instrument control, software packages generate documents for regulators, clients, and manufacturers. They also support an environment where technicians or even robots are performing most routine analyses. O t h e r companies a r e providing support for these computerized analytical laboratories. For instance, National Instruments of Austin, TX, sells both plug-in data acquisition boards and graphical user interface
software for PCs. And for those who need more power a n d memory for multitasking and handling large databases than standard PCs offer, Sun Microsystems was aggressively marketing Unix-based workstations. On the instrument side, the newest developments appeared in the field of microscopy. Two n e w companies, Digital Instruments and Topometrix Corporation, offer scanning tunneling, electrochemical scanning tunneling, a n d atomic force microscopes. These state-of-the-art devices have been used to generate atomic-level images of objects ranging from biomolecules to catalytic surfaces. From the more established manufacturers, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) continued to generate excitement. SFE replaces organic solvents with environmentally safer fluids such a s supercritical carbon dioxide, providing relatively quick and clean extractions. Hewlett-Packard representatives presented SFE tutorials at their booth to what they described a s standing-room-only crowds. Perkin Elmer a n d Suprex announced t h a t P E will offer S u prex's PrepMaster SFE system as the sample preparation front end of PE's GC and GC/MS systems. For a n u m b e r of y e a r s , i n s t r u ments have become smaller as lab
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 63, NO. 10, MAY 15, 1991 · 551 A
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bench space has become more valuable. Now they are also becoming mobile. The most ambitious example is a 14-ft house trailer, custom designed by E-N-G Mobile Systems of California and equipped with analytical instruments for environmental analyses in the field. Other upwardly mobile techniques included Bomem's new F T - I R s p e c t r a l r a d i o m e t e r MB2E system, which can be attached to a telescope for narrow fields of view, and Outokumpu's cart-mounted system for optical emission spectrometry. A n o t h e r , p e r h a p s less visible, product gaining importance among i n s t r u m e n t manufacturers is customer support. According to Dieter Hoehn, vice-president and general manager of Hewlett-Packard's analytical products division, customer service h a s grown to a more than $100 million b u s i n e s s . H e w l e t t Packard's customer service operation has developed into a worldwide system with regional centers linked together. In addition to the giant exposition, Pittcon features a full menu of technical talks. As a parallel to the soft-
ware focus on the exposition floor, talks on statistical methods for analyzing data were much in evidence this year. The area drawing the most interest was the use of artificial neural networks, which theoretically emulate the brain by processing data in parallel rather than serial steps. Most of the neural network studies are too preliminary to draw any definite conclusions a b o u t t h e technique's potential. However, Thomas Brueggemeyer of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Cincinnati, OH, reported that a comparison of the ability of neural networks and humans to classify forensic-related data found that the problems that fooled t h e h u m a n s also fooled t h e neural networks. Another area highlighted was sensor arrays. Possibly the most interesting talk in this field was the one given by University of Warwick electrochemist Philip B a r t l e t t on t h e electronic nose. This device serves as both a model for mammalian noses and a practical device for evaluating the aromas of products such as coffee or beer. For more information, see the FOCUS article on p. 585 A.
On a broader scale, the interest in sensors and data analysis schemes reflects industrial acceptance of process control a n d a u t o m a t i o n — placing analytical instruments on or near production lines and storage facilities to provide something close to real-time analysis of products. Fast analysis allows rapid troubleshooting and should m a k e m a n u f a c t u r e r s more efficient and hence more competitive. Finally, as they have done in past years, industry experts gave their view of post-1992 Europe during a breakfast hosted by Centcom, Ltd., the advertising sales management company for American Chemical Society publications. Declaring t h a t Europe will remain heterogeneous even after the "magical" 1992 date, Riccardo Pigliucci, vice-president of Perkin Elmer's instrument division, predicted that the competitive edge will remain with the company that has a local presence. Given that European, C a n a d i a n , J a p a n e s e , and even mainland Chinese manufacturers exhibited their wares in Chicago, Pigliucci's advice appears to work both ways. Alan K. Newman
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ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 63, NO. 10, MAY 15, 1991 · 553 A
