O-17
Liquid automation for nitrogen determinators
Presenter: Paul Pirozzola, LECO Corporation, St. Joseph, MO

Replacing wet chemistry methods with more advanced combustion techniques for elemental analysis of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen/protein has become the standard in most laboratories. In order to introduce beverage samples into these automated machines, current suppliers have only been able to offer limited liquid automation to promote higher throughput while maintaining analytical precision. Unfortunately, the process of automating the analysis of various liquids has been costly to the user due to the costs associated with sample containers, consumables, and maintenance. In this presentation, we will discuss the cost/benefit analysis of a new generation of liquid autosamplers that mate directly to a LECO TruSpec elemental determinator. This DI-PAL system eliminates many of the costly issues from the past, as well as expanding the analytical performance of previous generations of nitrogen/protein determinators.

Paul Pirozzola received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, PA, and will be receiving his M.B.A. from Indiana University South Bend in May 2005. He began employment with LECO Corporation in December 1997 as a product manager for their organic line of instruments. Prior to joining LECO, Paul worked as a process chemist for Cargill Corn Milling.