Actualité

Scientists working on the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) program have been making repeated observations of the hydrography, chemistry and biology of the water column at a station north of Oahu, Hawaii since October 1988. HOT is based out of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii and receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation. The objective of HOT research is to provide a comprehensive description of the ocean at a site representative of the North Pacific subtropical gyre.

Cruises are made approximately once per month to the deep-water Station ALOHA (A Long-Term Oligotrophic Habitat Assessment; 22° 45'N, 158° 00'W) located 100 km north of Oahu, Hawaii. Measurements of water column chemistry, currents, optical properties, primary production, plankton community structure, and rates of particle export are made on each cruise.

Both inorganic and organic nutrient samples are analyzed to provide a description of water column chemistry. Nutrient samples are collected on each cruise from the surface ocean and to a depth of ~4800m. The samples are frozen and brought back to the lab for analysis of NO3+NO2, PO4, and Si(OH)4 concentrations. These seawater nutrients are analyzed using a SEAL Analytical AutoAnalyzer 3 (AA3) Segmented Flow Analyzer. Samples are loaded onto the sampler and analyzed colorimetrically for each nutrient simultaneously, thus generating around 300 tests an hour.

LWCC (Liquid Waveguide Capillary Cell)

LWCC is a flowcell used for ultra-sensitive absorbance measurements with SEAL SFA instruments. It is a flowcell with a long optical path length that allows sample measurements at very low concentrations. Compared with a standard 10 mm flowcell, a 1 mAU signal is enhanced 100 fold to 100 mAU when using the 1000 mm LWCC. This means that your Gain value is lower and noise is greatly reduced. Path lengths range from 500 to 5000 mm. The sample solution is introduced into the LWCC at the liquid input via AA3HR or QuAAtro where the light is coupled into the LWCC from the HR photometer via fiber optic cables. As mentioned on Page 2 in the HOT article, water researchers are using the LWCC for next generation experiments in determining low level nutrients. Initial studies for Nitrite indicate with a calibration range of 0 – 10 ppb (0 – 0.71 µM), the gain is approximately 13 and the estimated detection limit is 0.013 ppb as N (0.0009 µM).

Recent Meeting and Conferences

During the last week of February 2014, SEAL attended the Ocean Science conference in Honolulu. It was a large conference with over 4000 delegates from around the world, all meeting in Hawaii to discuss the world's oceans. There was a Session on Station ALOHA: Celebrating 25 years of sustained ocean observations. Susan Curless (pictured on page 2), as the lead author, gave a poster on their work on low level nutrients, "ANALYSES OF INORGANIC NUTRIENT POOLS BY THE HAWAII OCEAN TIME-SERIES (HOT) PROGRAM: METHODS, PROCEDURES, AND STANDARDIZATION." It was a perfect opportunity
(and place!) to discuss low level nutrients with our users from all over the world including University of Hawaii, SOEST, SCRIPPS, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute,
BIOS – Bermuda, University Plymouth, UK and many more.

The following week, we attended the Pittcon conference in a much snowier and colder Chicago. It was a very well attended conference with over 12,000 delegates. The Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy is a Pennsylvania not-for-profit educational corporation. People from all over the world attended to see cutting edge innovations, attend technical sessions and workshops. Being so close to the SEAL US headquarters, it was great to see our SEAL staff meet many of our users.

Upcoming Meetings and Conferences

If you are planning to attend any of the following conferences – stop by our booth and say Hi!

SEAL User Group Meeting – Clearwater Beach, FL – May 20th, 2014
FSEA Spring Meeting – Clearwater Beach, FL – May 21st – 23rd, 2014
Water Summit – Milwaukee, WI – June 18th – 19th, 2014
VWEA Good Laboratory Practices Meeting – Charlottesville, VA - July 28th – 29th, 2014 ACIL Annual Meeting – Chicago, IL – October 5th – 8th, 2014

Flared End Pump Tubing for ICP

It can be difficult to insert the sample tube into the peristaltic pump tubing on your ICP-MS. This is particularly so if the peristaltic pump tubing has a small internal diameter (ID). For example the pump tubing used for the internal standard which usually has an ID of 0.2 to 0.4mm is incompatible with the sample tubing OD of 1.3mm. The flared end of this pump tubing allows the larger sample capillary tubing to be inserted. Any pump tubing type can be supplied with flared ends; this includes both 2-shoulder and 3-shoulder tubing types.

Contact us for a free sample! 262-643-4670 • sales@flaredtubing.com

TRAINING
Free with all
Premium Service Contracts

Did you know that SEAL offers ongoing training courses at their Milwaukee location?Spend a few days with SEAL's Technical Support Group – brush up on your chemistry, software and maintenance knowledge – increase your labs productivity.

The next training course will be held in July. Spaces are limited. Reserve now!

For more information, contact techsupport@seal-us.com or call 262-241-7900.

Flexibility In Your Nitrate Testing!

SEAL Discrete analyzers have the distinct advantage of having three EPA approved chemistry options for testing of Nitrate + Nitrite

• Cadmium reduction
• Hydrazine sulphate reduction
• Vanadium (III) Chloride reduction

The most commonly used method in the US is EPA 353.2 - Cadmium reduction which is easily accomplished using our AQ Discrete analyzers, because we had this test in mind when the analyzers were being designed.

The simple Cadmium circuit is a separate fluidic pathway that is automatically switched in line by the software when the Nitrate test is required. The Cadmium coils used are solid extruded cadmium that is covered for safety and ease of handling. Regeneration is easy too. The AQ software was designed with a special utility for automated Cadmium regeneration. Just add the CuSO4, buffer and high standard and the regeneration is done automatically by the system.