Spectroscopy-06-01-2007

Columnist David Ball discusses the fact that spectroscopy is based upon light and considers the spectroscopy of fire and flame.

For ethanol to be usable as a fuel, water must be removed in the distillation process. This article reviews an experiment conducted to test the capability of an EP-IR spectrometer to quantify the percentage volume of water in ethanol.

The market for process Raman spectroscopy is becoming established as a standard process analytical technique. The inherent traits of the technique make it among the best-suited analytical techniques for online usage. The diverse range of applications for process Raman ensures that growth in demand will continue to be robust well into the future.

Featured products from the spectroscopy marketplace.

Columnists Howard Mark and Jerome Workman, Jr. discuss the application of chemometric methods of relating measured NIR absorbances to compositional variables of samples.

This column is the continuation of a series (1-5) dealing with the rigorous derivation of the expressions relating the effect of instrument (and other) noise to its effects on the spectra we observe. Our first column in this series was an overview. While subsequent columns dealt with other types of noise sources, the ones listed analyzed the effect of noise on spectra when the noise is constant detector noise (that is, noise that is independent of the strength of the optical signal). Inasmuch as we are dealing with a continuous series of columns, on this branch in the thread of the discussion, we again continue the equation numbering and use of symbols as though there were no break. The immediately previous column (5) was the first part of this set of updates of the original columns.

The 55th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry was held from June 3-7 this year within the confines of the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. Thousands of scientists were in attendance with nearly 3000 papers presented as posters and talks.

This tutorial illustrates the most important definitions used in high-resolution mass spectrometry and clarifies the misconceptions surrounding some of the relevant terms used in this field.