Descriptif

Analytical chemistry I - Separation sciences for the analysis of environmental samples

The aim of the analytical chemistry course is to offer a primer to the main devices and methods classically used for the analysis of environmental samples. The first module is dedicated to separation and characterization sciences, mainly gas chromatography (GC), liquid chromatography (LC) and mass spectrometry (MS). GC-MS and LC-MS couplings constitute the major tools for environmental analysis since they permit both structural elucidation of unknown pollutants and accurate quantitation at trace amount in very complex mixtures.  

Teaching staff

Edith Nicol, Engineer, Ecole polytechnique

Stéphane Bouchonnet, Research Engineer, Ecole polytechnique

Course outline

• Gas chromatography

- General principles of operation in gas chromatography

- Assets and limitations of GC for the analysis of environmental samples

- Special developments (pyrolysis, multi-dimensional-GC, fast-GC…)

• Liquid chromatography

- Basics and principles of operation of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)

- Strategies of method development

• Ion sources in mass spectrometry

- Ion sources in GC-MS coupling (electron ionization and chemical ionization)

- Ion sources in LC-MS coupling (electrospray, atmospheric chemical ionization…)

• Mass analyzers and detection protocols

- Basics of ions separation

- fullscan, selected ion monitoring and tandem mass spectrometry - assets and limitations

• Fundamentals of quantitation by GC-MS and LC-MS

- General principles of quantitation in analytical sciences

- Results exploitation, notions of approximations and uncertainties

The module includes 14 hours of courses, 14 hours of tutorial classes and 12 hours of practical work.

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Level required: Basic knowledge in chemistry

Language: English

Credits ECTS: 6

Supervisor: Stéphane Bouchonnet