Alpha Analytic Laboratories

Evaluation of Analytical Results 8.3.1. F.A. Leuchter/Alpha Analytic Laboratories 

Cyanide traces of this minimal order of magnitude may be present anywhere, which is, however, improbable. 

This air raid shelter, like all rooms in Auschwitz-Birkenau, was occasionally fumigated with Zyklon B for disinfestation purposes. 

Analytical values in this order of magnitude (near the detectable threshold) are not reproducible and therefore cannot be interpreted due to the limited efficiency of the method. They are equivalent to zero values. In view of the results to be discussed below, this reason appears the most probable. 

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Prof. Dr. J. Roth, Alpha Analytic Laboratories, Ashland, Massachusetts. For the cyanide analysis, this laboratory used a procedure carried out analogously to the German standard (see 3.).501 Control analyses were prepared for some test samples near the detectable threshold of 1 mg cyanide per kg test material. The results fluctuated up to 40%. 

A new corny joke was recently added to this debate by Prof. James Roth from the Alpha Analytic Laboratories, Ashland, Massachusetts. I discuss this event here because Prof. Roth s allegations were widely publicized by the international media in connection with the libel case of British historian David Irving against Deborah E. Lipstadt.157... 

An LC method for the analysis of alpha acids has been published in Analytica-EBC Fourth Edition, but not so for iso-alpha acids. LC of alpha acids is. indeed, much easier than that of iso-alpha acids. This has been experienced repeatedly in collaborative efforts between interested laboratories (ring analyses), producing unacceptable and dissappointing differences in iso-alpha analytical results. We have been continuously active in this field and believe that we have most recently reached promising levels of accuracy and repeatability in iso-alpha acids chromatography. This will be detailed in the next paragraphs. 

Although there are many radioactivity detectors available, there has been very little development of analytical instruments or radiochemical sensors suitable for rapid and selective quantification of beta- and alpha-emitting radionuclides such as c, Sr, and TRU actinides in water or process streams. Current baseline analytical methods for these analytes are based on tedious manual radiochemical analysis methods performed in centralized laboratories. 

Metz CF (1957) Anal Chem 29 1748 Metz CF, Waterbury GR (1962) In KolthofflM, Elving PJ (eds) Treatise on analytical chemistry, part II, vol 8. Interscience, New York, pp 302-303 Midorikawa M, Sato Y, Hara S, Konno K, Iwanaga M (2006) The on-site laboratory for the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in Japan, lAEA-CN-148/103 Miguel M, Delle Site A, Deron S, Raab W, Swietly H (1984) Preparation of drop deposited plutonium sources on por< lain support, results and limit of alpha spectrometric analyses. Nucl Instrum Methods Phys Res 223 270... 

Several types of detectors for alpha particles are available, but the solid state ion implanted silicon semiconductors are most commonly used. As the counting time required for measurement of samples with low activity could be quite long (several days) and the cost of an analytical system is not very high, many laboratories operate several alpha spectrometers in parallel. 

Besides specific radionuclide determinations, screening methods to determine radioactive elements levels are very useful tools prior to laborious and expensive analytical protocols allowing isotopic analysis. These screening tools could replace gross alpha and gross beta index providing information about total element concentration. In order to develop fully automated methodologies based on inexpensive instruments, and consequently affordable for any routine laboratory, spectrophotometric detection can be used for this purpose. 

In our first paper (24) on the LC of hop bitter acids, no attempt at quantification was made. In 1980 we presented a first quantitative LC method for alpha acids with chalkone as internal standard (31). The adverse effect of trace metals in the chromatographic system, although small, was clearly demonstrated. In 1981 we described a method for the analysis of the iso-alpha acids in beer (32) using iso-octane extraction and with 2.6-di-t.butylphenol as internal standard. Direct injection of beer as such on a reversed phase LC column can simplify the analytical procedure, as described by our laboratory in 1982 (33). This development seems not to have... 

Micellar Electrokinetic Capillary Chromatography (MECC) is a relatively new technique in which the analytes are moved along in a capillary by micellar entrainment in an electric field. More commonly the technique is called Capillary Electrophoresis (CE). At present electrophoretic techniques in capillaries (packed and unpacked) receive a great amount of attention. First contributions from this laboratory show the possibilities which are characterized by speed, very high resolution and excellent inertness. Both alpha acids and iso-alpha acids have been separated completely and rapidly (38,39). If the problems of sample introduction and connected quantification can be solved, these techniques could well become very important for the brewery laboratories, even for routine analysis of bitter acids in hops and beer. 

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