Amino acids are the building blocks of life. Every living thing uses amino acids to build the proteins needed to do various functions within the organism. Where do amino acids come from and how many are needed to function? For humans, there are a total of 20 amino acids that are necessary for your body…
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Solvents are used extensively in labs and chemical manufacturing as starting materials for a chemical process; the diluent for a product, starting material, or reaction; or in the analysis of a starting material or product for quality purposes. Often times after use, that solvent is then sent into a waste stream to be dealt with…
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Now that spring is here and all things pollen are happening it’s time to get the allergy medicine ready. In honor of this wondrous time of year, we thought we would test some allergy meds! While not the usual way to test these medications, I decided to see if I could test using the Lucidity…
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Lucidity sent the Dan’s to the Spring ACS show in New Orleans to exhibit the GC-FID, GAS, and LC-UV and the response was overwhelmingly positive! We had an outstanding showing at the Spring ACS (American Chemical Society) meeting in New Orleans last week. We took over 200 leads and had a chance to catch up…
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Career days at elementary schools are often filled with excitement as young minds get the opportunity to explore various professions. Recently, I had the privilege of participating in one such event. As I walked the halls into the classroom where I was to give my presentation, I couldn’t help but to remember when I was…
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Folic Acid, Folate, or Vitamin B9 is a key vitamin used by the human body to generate new healthy red blood cells, form DNA and RNA, and break down a certain amino acid, homocysteine, that can be harmful in high amounts. The need for Folic Acid is especially important during pregnancy, which is why there…
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Whether you drink a beer from a major manufacturer, the local brewer down the street, or even brew the beer yourself, knowing the ethanol content of that beer is an important piece of information. Up until 1995 the alcohol content wasn’t allowed to be on beer labels at all until the Coors Brewing Company successfully…
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Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, is a term given to organic compounds that become a gas at ambient temperatures and pressures. These VOCs are monitored because many are hazardous to human health, with several being a carcinogen. The source of these VOCs are industrial processes, vehicle emissions, and even natural sources such as forest fires.…
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Robustness is something that needs to be considered when using a Gas Chromatograph (GC) instrument. You want a system that is rugged and reliable and able to withstand dirty samples and long batch times, so that you don’t have to spend a lot of time troubleshooting, repairing, or cleaning your GC. After all, you’ve got…
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HPLC columns are the crux of a good separation and as we all learned, the smaller the particle size, the higher the efficiency of the column, and the better resolution you will get. This better resolution leads to more peaks being separated out or even close eluting peaks to be baseline resolved. With smaller particle…
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