Latest News and Application Notes

While time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) was first proposed in 1946, the technology simply didn't exist to allow for fast enough processing speeds to make it widely viable until 1995, when the Fast Chromatographic Detector was debuted at Pittcon. This group went on to join LECO and create the world's first commercial GC-TOFMS, the Pegasus®, in 1997. Ever since then, technological capabilities have exploded. One-dimensional GC-TOFMS and multi-dimensional GCxGC-TOFMS are powerful and provide rich and highly informative data. If you have a number of samples to study, the volume of data produced might seem overwhelming.  However, LECO's data analysis add-ons for ChromaTOF® brand software, ChromaTOF Tile and ChromaTOF Sync, have once again pushed GC-TOFMS capabilities beyond what was previously feasible.

Few things in the world bring people together like food. Flavor and aroma are often central pillars of a good time. Whether it’s developing a meat substitute or characterizing the subtle intricacies of liquor, the study of food, flavor, and aromas is critical to so many industries that touch everyone around the world.

The analysis of peppers for flavor profiles and food volatiles is not new. With a wide array of varieties, peppers find uses in not just food markets, but also pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Analyzing peppers isn't new. Finding ways to increase the sustainability and "green" qualities of those analyses, however, is an ongoing challenge, and one that Micaela Galletta, Mariosimone Zoccali, Donato Creti, Luigi Mondello, and Peter Q. Tranchida tackled in a recent study published in Green Analytical Chemistry.

How do you handle the analysis and characterization of a complex sample like whisky*? In a recent interview with eFood Lab International, Dr. Geraint (Taff) Morgan of the Applied Science & Technology Group at the Open University, UK, says a 1D quadrupole GC-MS is sufficient for routine analysis, but when he really wants to dig into the non-target analysis of a complex sample, he turns to GC-TOFMS and GCxGC-TOFMS, such as that employed by the LECO Pegasus^® BT 4D.

With ever-increasing demands on your time and resources, optimizing your workflow is essential. Learn how state of the art instrument and software solutions come together, to enhance your one- and two-dimensional gas chromatography applications (GC-MS and GCxGC-MS) in a collection of short webinars presented on Wednesday, November 30. These webinars will be presented twice for ease of international audiences.

Environmental crises are now a daily concern in labs all around the world, and scientists are racing to get ahead of the problems. In their latest e-book partnership, LCGC and LECO teamed up to turn a spotlight on some of the latest GC-MS and GCxGC-MS techniques that can help labs pull ahead of the curve.

Pesto can trace its roots back to ancient times, though it really only started taking off in North America in the 1980s and 90s. Though the primary base is consistent, with pine nuts, basil, and olive oil, individual recipes vary. As canned and bottled pesto became more accessible, individual manufacturers developed their own unique flavor profiles. While these recipes are usually trade secrets, the power of GCxGC TOFMS can tease apart some of the differences.

Sustainability is on everybody’s mind these days. Companies want to create products that are better for the environment and consume fewer resources. Unilever is no exception. This forward-thinking flavor company has recently been pushing to develop new and delicious plant-based protein substitutes that are more sustainable than meat-based protein but no less healthy (or, preferably, even more healthy!). However, as Unilever scientists Hans-Gerd Janssen and Ed Rosing explain, nature made a pretty delicious protein in the form of meat, with a very distinct flavor and mouth-feel. Creating a substitute isn’t easy.

Charred oak barrels that were once used to age bourbon have found new life as they get repurposed for a variety of foods and beverages to add a new flavor profile to familiar delicacies. But how much can an old bourbon-soaked barrel change the chemical makeup? LECO used ChromaTOF® Tile to differentiate regular and barrel-aged maple syrups and quantify the difference.