Every training is a story of success.
Discover three of them to understand how such a training could benefit your lab.
Even when you think that you might know enough already.
The blind eye
An analytical laboratory of a very large chemical company invited me to give an update training to their staff on an Agilent 8900 Triple Quad system. They had been using the instrument for some time, but thought it would be a good idea to get some more insight, tips and tricks from an expert. This is always beneficial, especially since it is easy to get caught up in the daily grind of using the same parameters and software features you always use, forgetting about others you may have heard of, or never finding the time to play with. But what software features are hiding in plain sight that would make your life easier if you used them? What other things might you be missing because they are right in front of you?
We were just discussing the IntelliQuant feature of the MassHunter software when I noticed a strange discrepancy. The sensitivity of one element was much higher than it should be compared to the surrounding elements. A discrepancy that I, as a playful visitor to many labs, immediately saw and which piqued my interest. The staff of the lab dismissed this observation, saying that there could be no error in the preparation of the standards, because the process was as simple as it could be. They just use two custom-made multi-element standards to calibrate all the elements. But I insisted on investigating.
To make a long story short, this particular element was present in both custom-made multi-element standards due to an oversight in the procurement process. So the actual concentration in the calibration was twice as high as the staff thought and entered into the calibration window, causing them to report incorrect results for years. It happens to all of us. We look at our own work for the tenth time and still don't see the obvious mistakes because they've been there all along. It's good to have a different perspective and have other people look at your work.
Revealing a process problem with ICP-MS
A small pharmaceutical company hired me to give a general training on ICP-MS with a focus on compliance with ICH Q3D, a strict regulatory framework for chemical analysis of pharmaceutical products. This training was pleasantly unspectacular until I received a small complaint in half a sentence: The instrument would sometimes show particularly high results for a regulated element. A result that was obviously wrong because when they ran the sample again, starting with a fresh digestion, the particular element was no longer present. But each time this happened, it would cause unnecessary work and stop the product release process.
Knowing that there are no false positive signals in ICP-MS, meaning that there can't be a signal where there isn't at least something causing it, I began to investigate. And since the element in question was indeed quite unlikely to appear out of nowhere, I focused on the possible interferences.
This is a general problem with analytical chemistry today, regardless of the technique used: We usually only see what we are looking for. I re-measured an affected sample for possible impurities and indeed found a huge amount of an interferent. I urged the lab staff to retrace the sample's entire path, and we found a faulty device used in the sample preparation process that was slowly being dissolved by the acids used.
I ended the day by strengthening the client's method with interference corrections, just in case, and training the staff more intensively on interferences and how to detect them. The staff, in turn, ended the day by retiring the faulty sample preparation equipment and saving hours upon hours of remeasuring perfectly good products in the future.
Saving big on maintenance
A large food, soil and agricultural service laboratory with many ICPs from different manufacturers purchased a new Agilent 7850 and booked me to give a general update training to their staff. During the training, they expressed frustration with an older model that had been running tough, highly concentrated soil digests for seven years. This instrument, they claimed, was more unstable than a comparable instrument from another manufacturer, required frequent cleaning and maintenance, and had problems with high masses, namely excessive thallium recoveries in high lead samples. We scheduled another appointment to address this issue.
During the ensuing investigation, it was discovered that the sample volume introduced into the system was several times greater than for the other instrument used for the same application. By simply changing the diameter of the sample and internal standard tubing, I was able to reduce the amount of matrix flowing into the instrument, resulting in a much more stable run without losing any detection limits. The need for future maintenance dropped dramatically, but there was another problem.
Because of the high matrix load that had been introduced into this ICP-MS for 7 years, even the quadrupole was beginning to show signs of contamination, resulting in poor resolution at higher masses. High concentrations of lead would creep into the 205 thallium mass. The official option would have been a costly cleaning or replacement of the quadrupole. The lab didn't want to make that investment for an old instrument. However, I had another idea.
By manually tuning the quadrupole parameters specifically for the high-mass side, I was able to increase the resolution again at the expense of some sensitivity – but it was still easily high enough for the customer's high-matrix samples. Money saved, instrument ready for a few more years – and a happy customer.