Chromatography Quiz #15 Results

We would like to congratulate our grand prize winners of our last newsletter’s Amino Acids Analysis Chromatography Quiz: Tom Schneider from Suffolk County Water Authority, Jim Balk from DHHS Public Health Environmental Laboratory, and Narjes Ghafoori from LA County Environmental Toxicology Laboratory!

They have each won and will shortly be receiving: a $100 gift card for Best Buy, which can be used online or in the store!!!

We would like to thank all of you for your submissions!

The correct answer for the Amino Acids troubleshooting chromatogram: the baseline noise was caused by a dirty flow cell. As we have seen through several Chromatography Quizzes, baseline noise can have a variety of causes, both mechanical and chemical. In this chromatogram, the noise we are seeing is not regular or repeatable, steering us away from the HPLC pump, a trapped bubble, or the back-pressure regulator.

To learn more about baseline noise, please review Maria’s article entitled “The Art of Noise” (http://pickeringlabs-retentiontimes.com/?p=58) from a previous newsletter.

Thank you!

Pickering Labs

Chromatography Quiz #16:

We are doing something a little bit different with this quiz! Identify what’s wrong with the picture below and win a prize! Simply email your answer as well as your full contact information to Rebecca at rlsmith@pickeringlabs.com by July 1^st, 2014 in order to win. You will receive email confirmation that your submission has been received. The answer to the quiz and winner congratulations will be published in the next issue (to be anonymous, please notify Rebecca in your submission).

A blast from the past: What is wrong with this picture?!

As you can probably tell from the photo, we’ve dug into Michael’s past for our quiz this quarter! Look carefully and see if you can figure out what’s wrong with this picture! If you have any questions, please feel free to email Rebecca at rlsmith@pickeringlabs.com for further guidance.