2014/07
Welcome to the July issue of EVISA's Speciation Newsletter.

Speciation plays a major role when it comes to risk assessment of ecological and human health hazards. Since physicochemical and chemical characteristics of compounds depend on molecular structure rather than on metal content, the bioavailability, bioaccessibility and biological activity in general depends on molecular structure and composition and therefore on the speciation of the target elements. 

Environmental speciation analysis therefore often aims at the assessment of health risks based on the bioavailability for target elements of potential toxicity.  While many authors use the term "speciation" they often only use methods to assess the bioavailable fraction of an element rather than to specify and quantify a real species. Such approach is a first step towards the differentiation of total elemental concentration  into different fractions. However, since real species are not identified, species are only characterised by the operation of fractionation and therefore lack reproducibility and comparability (see our brief summary in the News).

In the sense of the IUPAC definition for speciation/fractionation the differentiation of ionic species from nanoparticles also is a fractionation. Often similar techniques can be used for fractionation and speciation, e.g. hyphenated techniques where a separation procedure is coupled with sensitive elemental detection. Two German chemists have developed a novel method based the coupling of micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) and inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for separating and characterizing gold and silver nanoparticles and dissolved species (see the news below).


While so called "toxic" elements cannot be eliminated, toxic compounds can be detoxified by degradation and transformation.  In order to achieve such remediation under economical favorite conditions it's a good idea to let microbes do the job. Researchers at Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a DOE national scientific user facility at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Miami University now studied the process by which iron- reducing bacteria reduce ferric iron in clay minerals, resulting in ferrous iron that could then immobilize and detoxify chromium (see the news below).




NEWS | EVENTS | VACANCIES | DIRECTORY | LINKS
NEWS

EVISA is keeping you updated  with what is going on in speciation analysis. In this section you will find news about the most current research results, about trends, legal issues and informations from manufacturers in the field of speciation analysis.

With all the links to further information and publications the News archive is a valuable collection of "hot topics" in speciation analysis. We continuously update even former news with new links and information so that all news are actual all the time.


Fractionation as a first step towards speciation analysis
According to IUPAC, speciation analysis is the analytical activity of identifying and/or measuring the quantities of one or more individual chemical species in a sample. Unfortunately that goal cannot always be met. In such cases often a group of species rather than individual species are the target for analysis.
more

Characterization and Speciation of Gold and Silver Nanoparticles by MEKC-ICP-MS
By coupling micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) and inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), two German chemists have developed a novel method for separating and characterizing nanoparticles and dissolved species.
more

Iron-reducing bacteria could detoxify hexavalent chromium
Iron-reducing bacteria can convert the oxidized form of iron in clay minerals, called ferric iron, into the reduced form of iron, called ferrous iron, which can then reduce hexavalent chromium to trivalent chromium—the reduced, insoluble and less toxic form of the heavy metal that poses a lower risk of groundwater contamination.
more


EVENTS
With a list of about 50 current entries EVISA is informing you about interesting events and keeps you updated with their deadlines. By consulting our list of deadlines you won't miss the opportunity for early registration at reduced fee or the chance to submit your contribution in time.
 more infos...


2014 NEMC /Environmental Measurement Symposium

Date: August 4,2014 - August 8,2014
Location: Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
July 15,2014 Submission of presentation


24. ICP-MS Anwendertreffen und
11. Symposium Massenspektrometrische Verfahren
Elementspurenanalyse 2014


Date: September 15,2014 - September 18,2014
Location: HZG Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht, Germany
July 15,2014 Registration


2nd Workshop on Field-Flow Fractionation - Mass Spectrometry (FFF-MS)

Date: September 25,2014 - September 26,2014
Location: Vienna, Austria
July 30,2014 Submission of abstracts


2014 SCIX Conference: Annual National Meeting of the Society
for Applied Spectroscopy (SAS) /
The 41st Annual North American Meeting of the Federation
of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS)


Date: September 28,2014 - October 3,2014
Location: Reno, Nevada
July 31,2014 Submission of abstracts for poster presentations


9th Aegean Analytical Chemistry Days (AACD2014)

Date: September 29,2014 - October 3,2014
Location: Aegean island of Chios, Greece
July 25,2014 Reduced registration fee deadline
August 22,2014 Last date of payment for inclusion of abstract in the conference proceedings
August 27,2014 Last minute posters deadline
(May not appear in the final programme and conference proceedings)


Please do not hesitate to inform us in case that your conference related to speciation
analysis is missing in our Agenda.


2014 NEMC /Environmental Measurement Symposium
Location: Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Date: 04.08.2014 - 08.08.2014
more

ISC 2014: 30th International Symposium on Chromatography
Location: Salzburg, Austria
Date: 14.08.2014 - 18.08.2014
more

BNASS/TraceSpec 2014: Tandem Conference
Location: University of Aberdeen– Aberdeen, Scotland
Date: 31.08.2014 - 04.09.2014
more

AOAC's 128th Annual Meeting & Exposition
Location: Boca Raton, Florida, USA
Date: 07.09.2014 - 10.09.2014
more

24. ICP-MS Anwendertreffen und 11. Symposium Massenspektrometrische Verfahren Elementspurenanalyse 2014
Location: HZG Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht, Germany
Date: 15.09.2014 - 18.09.2014
more

2nd Workshop on Field-Flow Fractionation - Mass Spectrometry (FFF-MS)
Location: Vienna, Austria
Date: 25.09.2014 - 26.09.2014
more



VACANCIES

EVISA provides information about open positions for Ph.D. students, PostDocs and permanent staff in the field of speciation. Looking to fill a vacancy or needing a new career challenge? Either way this service is FREE. Many laboratories and research facilities (from Greenland to Crete) have already found their highly educated stuff through this service by EVISA. If you would like to post an open position here, please contact us at info@speciation.net !


Doctorates


Postdoctoral

U.S. FDA: FOOD SAFETY/CHEMISTRY RESEARCH
The Office of Regulatory Science of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is seeking outstanding analytical or bioanalytical chemists with mass spectrometry expertise to participate in our food safety/food defense research program.
more


Other



DIRECTORY

EVISA's directory of scientist is a versatile tool to facilitate contact with scientists in the field of speciation and related sciences. The directory is fully searchable for names, addresses, research topics etc.  You should bookmark this directory as an always up-to-date address book. (In order to hinder SPAM robots for collecting the E-mail accounts, we hide them in a special format).

More than 280 active scientists in the field of speciation analysis already joined the directory. Join this great directory that is extensively linked to all type of other information on this site, such as homepages, conferences and literature.

If your entry is still missing in this directory, please contact us at info@speciation.net.

more


LINKS

EVISA provides an easy access to external information. Our database contains more than 2700 links to relevant information from numerous top scientific resources spread over the whole Web. The database is searchable both via full-text and categories such as elements, type of species and type of information. We are permanently updating our links section.

If your web site is missing here, please e-mail your link information to info@speciation.net.

 
more

This issue of evisa's Speciation Newsletter has been sent to you by EVISA, because you have registered for this service. If you would like to modify your user account, please log-in on EVISA's web portal at http://www.speciation.net with your username and password and edit your user account.

Please feel free to pass this Speciation Newsletter to others who may benefit from EVISA. If you have any contributions or suggestions, please send these to editors@speciation.net.

This is a post-only e-mail.  Please do not reply to this message.  For all inquiries, problems or suggestions regarding this service, please visit http://www.speciation.net or contact info@speciation.net



Copyright 2014 EVISA 
All rights reserved.  Any unauthorized use, reproduction, or transfer of this message or its contents, in any medium, is strictly prohibited.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of EVISA.


Disclaimer
No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. The Newsletter represents only the opinion of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Community. The European Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of the information provided.