At Pittcon, IBO sees many new products, which are defined as products released within six months of the show. From these products, each year IBO selects three that it feels are the most noteworthy for their innovation, technical achievements and commercial potential. This year, IBO has chosen instruments that meet these requirements in three different ways.

AB SCIEX 4500 MS

This year, IBO has selected AB SCIEX’s 4500 Triple Quad MS as the top new product at Pittcon. Although this MS is not the highest performance triple quadrupole model AB SCIEX sells, the company claims the system offers an order of magnitude better sensitivity than any other triple quadrupole LC/MS that sells in the $200,000 to $250,000 price range. The system is designed for routine quantitation and screening, which the company commented accounts for the majority of triple quadrupole MS applications.

Although the 4500 is AB SCIEX’s mid-range performance model, it offers the same 50 ms polarity switching and 12,000 Da/sec quadrupole scanning speed as the AB SCIEX 5500, which is the company’s top range triple quadrupole MS. Also, the 4500 offers a wider mass range (m/z 5–2000) than the 5500. Unique to AB SCIEX triple quadrupole systems, including the 4500 model, is the optional Q-Trap configuration that the company claims offers 100 times more full-scan sensitivity than other standard triple quadrupole systems.

However, the biggest reason why the 4500 MS was selected as a top new product of the show was its commercial potential. The instrument that it replaces, the API 4000, was the most successful triple quadrupole LC/MS in history. This replacement of such a popular model suggests it will find a receptive end-user base. Even if one considers the likely replacement sales of older models alone, the AB SCIEX 4500 can already be labeled a success even before the first unit is shipped.

Waters UPC2

Waters introduced the ACQUITY UltraPerformance Convergence Chromatography (UPC2) system. The system provides an alternative to HPLC and GC for the analyses of sample types that can be difficult to analyze using normal-phase chromatography. Such sample types include hydrophobic compounds and lipids.

In SFC, carbon dioxide is generally combined with a co-solvent, such as acetonitrile or methanol, to deliver high diffusion rates and mass transfer for efficient LC separations. When compared to GC applications, carbon dioxide allows for the use of lower temperatures and does not require the derivatization of samples (which alters the functional groups of analytes).

Although there are many advantages of SFC technology, SFC instruments sometimes have delivered unreliable and inconsistent results. Waters purports to have resolved many of these issues with the UPC2 system, having made advancements in the design and engineering to make SFC more reliable and robust—and thus applicable to a larger market.

The system can be used with small-particle columns and allows co-solvent and column switching. It enables partial loop injections of between 0.5 µL and 10 µL. It features lower system volume, and greater gradient accuracy and precision. The UPC2 supersedes Waters’s existing analytical SFC models. The system is priced around $90,000. Waters is currently shipping the system. The company also introduced ACQUITY UPC2 columns based on ethylene-bridged particle technology.

Quantachrome WAVE Series

Quantachrome’s WAVE series of pore-analysis instrumentation introduces a new method for measuring several related properties of porous samples. Traditional porosimetry methods involve gas sorption or the introduction of mercury into the sample pores under high pressure; preparation and analysis may take as long as a day. Quantachrome’s new analyzers can now provide results in as little as one minute.

The operating principle and technology is electroacoustical in nature. The sample and its pores are fully wetted with a wetting agent. Ultrasonic acoustic waves cause motion at the interface between the sample and the wetting agent, which sets up an electrical signal. High-frequency conductivity measurements are converted into a measurement of the percent porosity.

Measurements can provide information on average pore size and the streaming zeta potential of the shear layer between the liquid and the sample pores. While more traditional systems can provide full pore-size distribution, the new WAVE systems can provide rapid screening measurements.

The full-featured WAVE 3805 Electroacoustic Pore Analyzer can measure all three quantities: porosity, average pore size and zeta potential. The system is priced at $45,000. The WAVE 1905 Rapid Porosity Analyzer provides measurement of the sample porosity at a price of $15,000. The series also includes the mid-range WAVE 2305, which measures porosity and zeta potential.