Talking value and performance in Micro and Capillary LC
Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary
Environmental Management Science grants awarded In February, DOE announced that the Offices oo Environmental Management and Energy Research would jointly administer a grant program in environmental management science {Anall Chem. 1996, 6,, 237A). Those grants have been awarded, and analytical chemists didn't do too badly. Analytical chemistry was represented in 17 proposals out of die 138 that were funded, not including the 11 "separations chemistry" projects that were classified separately. These 17 projects were funded at a level of $12 million over three years, representing more than 11% of the $112 miillon proposed over the same period. Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary announced the awards at a press conference with Martha A. Krebs, director of the Office of Energy Research, and Al Aim, assistant secretary for environmental management. O'Leary said that this program is the "earnest attempt" of the department to use basic science and technology to address the expensive task of environmental clean-up at DOE sites.
BUSINESS
Agreement to develop robotic lab In July the DOE announced a five-year, $66 million cooperative research and development agreement with SciBus Analytical, Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA) to commercialize a robotic mobile environmental analysis laboratory developed at five national laboratories. This is the first joint licensing
agreement implemented through DOE's Environmental Management Program. The mobile automated laboratory will house a mix of commercial and nationallaboratory-developed modules for weighing, filtration, drying, and other tasks required for EPA analysis methods. Modules will be interchangeable and controlled by a single operating system. The automated laboratory was developed by DOE at cost of ~ $20 million undee its Chemical Analysis Automation program. The department estimates that the robotic faciiity could reduce the costs of environmental lesting by as much as 25%. This savings is sizeable for DOE, which estimates that it may need as many as 2 million analyses ser year in support of its cleanup activities. The agreement gives SciBus Analytical exclusive rights to the technology and provides royalties to the five national laboratories involved in the development— Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Electronic lab book consortium expands Is the computer revolution about to banish the handwritten laboratory notebook? The Collaborative Electronic Lab Notebooks Consortium thinks so, and in August it announced that a fifth Fortune 300 company, Dow Chemical Co., has joined the effort. "Scientists have long needed electronic notebooks as a way to minimize the tedium of lab work," said Rich Lysakowski, the consortium's executive director. "In their current paper form, notebooks are very time-consuming to use and costly to manage." The consortium, formed in 1995, is defining and funding the development of commercial electronic notebooks. These notebooks will capture, store, and manage records within existing systems used in laboratories, including document management, groupware, and the Internet. In addition, the notebook will allow chemical structures and spectra to be embedded in the files and will provide references to databases such as CAS's SciFinder and Beilstein's CrossFire. The consortium is looking for additional members and hopes to deliver its first software and knowledge packages by early next year. For more information contact the consortium at info@teamscience com or 508-443-4771
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Reproducibility (n = 8) Peak 1: 0.10% RSD, Peak 2: 0.05% RSD, Peak 3: 0.07% RSD
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