Dmitri Mendeleev – creator of the periodic table

The periodic table is fundamental to chemistry. Anyone who has sat though school chemistry lessons will remember it as an important tool for understanding chemical reactions.

Today is 178 years since the birth of the creator of the periodic table, Russian chemist, Dmitri Mendeleev.

Mendeleev was born in 1834. His father a teacher of fine arts, politics and philosophy unfortunately became blind and lost his teaching position straining the family’s finances. His mother was forced to work and she restarted her family’s abandoned glass factory. After Mendeleev’s father died and his mother’s factory destroyed by fire, the family relocated to Saint Petersburg where Mendeleev entered the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1850. After graduation, he contracted tuberculosis, requiring him to move to the northern coast of the Black Sea. While there he became a science master of the Simferopol gymnasium and returned to Saint Petersburg in 1857 with fully restored health. Mendeleev spent most of his career in St. Petersburg as a popular and influential lecturer at the university. However he did spend some time in England and Germany studying – in fact he spent some time studying with Robert Bunsen. Mendeleev became widely honoured by scientific organisations all over Europe, including the Copley Medal from the Royal Society.

In 1869 Mendeleev created a table of elements – 63 at the time – in ascending order by atomic weight, grouped together by similarities in properties. The brilliance of it was that he left gaps for elements not yet discovered. By the 1880s some of those elements in fact were discovered making him famous globally.

In 1893, he was appointed Director of the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures. It was in this role that Mendeleev formulated new state standards for the production of vodka. As a result of his work, in 1894 new standards for vodka were introduced into Russian law and all vodka had to be produced at 40% alcohol by volume.

The successor of the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures, named after Mendeleev, is known as The D.I. Mendeleev All-Russian Institute for Metrology (VNIIM) and is one of the largest world centres of scientific metrology. It is the leading Russian organisation in the field of high accuracy measurements and the major centre of national measurement standards in Russia.

Want to find out more about the periodic table?
Chemistry in its element
Elements 114 and 116 names provisionally approved
A brief history of the development of the periodic table

Making Measurement Matter: How do you know your results measure up?

Measurement affects almost every aspect of our daily lives, from the fuel in our cars and the quality of the air we breathe, to the safety of our food, water, healthcare, and our cosmetic products. Chemical and bioanalytical measurements are important in underpinning the enforcement of regulations. Every day, thousands of chemical measurements support decisions on food safety, health, and environmental protection. It is therefore critical that organisations producing or using measurement data have confidence in the results obtained.

In a recently published article in IUPAC Chemistry International, my colleague, Dr Gavin O’Connor and I discuss the measurement challenges facing the clinical sector in terms of In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices Directive (EC IVDD, 98/79/EC) compliance, measurement traceability for routine health screening and therapeutic drug monitoring, and new research resulting in a major step towards achieving protein traceability.

Full article.

Whisky for Burns Night? Science to identify adulteration

As Burns Night approaches, so does the age old question of which whisky best accompanies haggis. Whilst the whisky connoisseurs may choose to deliberate on this question endlessly, you may simply want to be assured that your chosen whisky brand is authentic.

Bootlegging, adulteration, counterfeiting – call it what you will, but according to Her Majesty’s Revenue Commission, revenue lost due to the production of fake spirit alcohol between 2009 and 2010 cost the UK taxpayer approximately £440 million*. In support of the global whisky manufacturing industry, LGC, the UK’s designated National Measurement Institute for chemical and bioanalytical measurement, has produced a reference material to help identify adulterated high-end whiskies.

Adulteration is a major problem for the global drinks industry and, in order to keep control of this issue and accurately identify adulteration when it occurs, alcohol manufacturers monitor marker substances in their products. It is these marker substances which can be profiled to prove authenticity. Congeners – volatile organic compounds formed during the whisky fermentation process – are used as marker substances to help distinguish and differentiate between brands. They also dictate the unique flavour of whisky brands.

LGC has produced the reference material specifically for whisky congeners to help manufacturers uphold the protection of their brand, ensure process and quality control, and enhance research and development.

Gill Holcombe, Head of Reference Material Production at LGC explains: “For manufacturers of high-end spirits to be confident in the quality of their analysis, they need to be able to validate and monitor procedures using reference materials close in matrix composition to the test samples. This whisky congener reference material does just that, and is yet another weapon in the arsenal against alcohol adulteration.”

This reference material, LGC5100, is available from LGC Standards (www.lgcstandards.com) the division of LGC that provides products and services to improve measurement in the laboratory. For further information about this new whisky congener reference material, or to place an order please visit the LGC Standards webshop (www.shop.lgcstandards.com), contact your local LGC Standards sales office or email: askus@lgcstandards.com

Add some Chemistry to your Christmas

Christmas is a time of plenty, but when you sit down to tuck in to your Christmas dinner, the last thing you want to think about is whether your food is safe to eat. Fortunately the Government Chemist function is in place to ensure food safety from farm to fork.

…However, the quality of your culinary skills is down to you!

Diddled of your alcohol?
…Not on our watch! In a past case, a public analyst found 20% less alcohol than declared at the point of sale in a sample of beer from a public house. By measuring alcoholic strength and original gravity of alcohol samples, the Government Chemist can determine alcohol content.

Sweet, but not so innocent
The little boy was five years old and sucking on a delicious fruit gel sweet without a worry in the world…until he started choking. Paramedics arrived but it was too late – a 1.5cm piece of gel had become lodged in his throat. The Government Chemist helps improve methods of testing for choking hazards by carrying out analysis to establish the likelihood that jelly confectionaries could become lodged in a child’s throat. 

Christmas spirit
Is your favourite Christmas tipple really what you think it is? In order to prevent adulteration of quality spirits with inferior brands, manufacturers add low concentrations of marker substances, for example sugar compounds, which can be checked if authentication is required. These markers provide a unique chemical ‘fingerprint’ for each brand. Using particular analytical techniques, the Government Chemist can reveal the spirit’s true identity.

Your Christmas turkey – fresh or frozen?
If you are willing to pay a premium for fresh poultry, how can you be certain that a product has not been previously frozen or partially frozen and then thawed? The Government Chemist ensures that the current method in place to distinguish between fresh and previously frozen or rapidly frozen chicken and turkey remains valid.

European Commission Regulations require whole poultry or poultry parts be marketed as either ‘fresh’ or ‘chilled’ if they have been stored between -2°C and +4°C. Poultry can be marketed as ‘frozen’ or ‘quick-frozen’, but they are not permitted to be marketed as ‘fresh’ if they have been previously frozen and then thawed.

Raspberry or strawberry?
Microscopic secrets reveal ice cream adulteration!
A request to determine the identity of fruit in raspberry ripple ice cream offered an analytical challenge, exacerbated by the complex ice cream background matrix. Using optical microscopy to characterise the number, length, profile and cross-section of hair like structures (trichromes) found in both strawberries and raspberries, the Government Chemist was able to determine the presence of strawberry in some raspberry samples.

Pesticide free fruit & vegetables
Tests are in place to detect for the use of unauthorised pesticides in our food products and to ensure that residues are below the maximum residue limit. The normal and approved use of pesticides will often result in multiple residues.

May contain nuts…
What does this really mean? Developed during a recent collaborative research project, a new DNA-based screening approach for the simultaneous detection of allergenic nuts in food, offers a new, alternative, reliable and sensitive method to that currently in use. This will benefit consumers through improved assurance of food labelling and ultimately reduce adverse reactions to food products.

Protecting Christmas nuts 
Contamination by fungal toxins, for example aflatoxins, has been the subject of several referee cases and are a major reason for recalling food products from supermarket shelves. Aflatoxins are a range metabolites produced by some strains of moulds. They can cause cancer in animals and there is evidence of risk to humans. The moulds typically grow in humid conditions and have been found in many food stuffs, particularly in nuts and figs. Every year the Government Chemist regularly investigates alleged cases of aflotoxin contamination.

Food Adulteration – you are what you eat
Did you know that during the 1800’s, bakers often added powdered bones, alum and chalk to flour, to give bread a white appearance, while mercury was added to sweets to enhance their colour! Today, whilst by law food packages and drink containers must state their contents, food adulteration still occurs. The majority of cases are driven by economic motives where key ingredients are often substituted with a cheaper option. LGC’s Government Chemist function provides expert opinion, based on independent chemical measurement to help avoid or resolve disputes pertaining to food and agriculture in order to protect the public.

Hangover cure – the real deal?
LGC uses high accuracy mass spectrometry to measure small isotope ratio variations to detect counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs and packaging and distinguish between counterfeit sources.

Discover chemistry with LGC

International Year of Chemistry 2011, designated as the International Year of Chemistry’ (IYC 2011), was an entire year devoted to the celebration of chemistry. Under the unifying theme “Chemistry – our life, our future” IYC 2011 was a worldwide initiative to increase public appreciation of chemistry in meeting world needs, to encourage interest in chemistry among young people and to generate enthusiasm for the creative future of chemistry.

Spreading the word
Engagement with the wider scientific community and the public is fundamental to LGC’s role as a National Measurement Institute. 2011 has been a successful year at LGC, and to support IYC 2011, we have made substantial steps in developing new and exciting dissemination routes for our science. In a bid to not only raise the awareness of IYC 2011, but also to emphasise that developments in chemistry are essential for sustainability and improvements in every human being’s life, we have built a twitter page, under the name @LGCGroup, in order to communicate developments in science with a wide audience.
Follow LGC on twitter

We also opened our doors to the public to coincide with World Metrology Day which celebrates the signing of the Meter Convention which took place 136 years ago on 20 May 1875. The Convention created the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) and set the framework for global collaboration in measurement science and its industrial, commercial and social applications. The open evening was attended by 300 members of the public, including schools, colleges and local residents. This was a fantastic opportunity for us to raise our profile within the local community and demonstrate how we are using our high specification equipment to improve healthcare, ensure food safety, and develop greener fuels.

 In addition, to demonstrate the importance of chemistry and how chemistry affects almost every aspect of our daily lives, from the fuel in our cars and the quality of the air we breathe, to the safety of our food and water, and cosmetic products, we produced a poster to demonstrate how each of us interacts with chemistry through a typical day.
Download your copy.

We have also had a feature article published in the September issue of Laboratory News, demonstrating how measurement research carried out under the National Measurement System ensures the safety of our consumer products in our everyday lives.

Get connected
Under the umbrella of the National Measurement System , the UK’s National Measurement Institutes LGC, NPL and NEL developed the Measurement Network as an effective and powerful forum for people interested in measurement science to share information, collaborate, discuss ideas and identify events within relevant scientific communities.

The Measurement Network is one of over 20 national science networks with a presence on the Technology Strategy Board’s _connect platform, which is already a gateway to many thousands of people.

Why join the Measurement Network on _connect?
- Find collaborators and discover new funding opportunities
- Share measurement knowledge with measurement scientists
- Get advice from your peers and National Measurement System experts
- Find out about measurement-related events
- Get involved with working groups or other activities tailored to your own particular interests.
Join now

New research from LGC

Discover LGC’s latest research in the winter 2011 edition of Catalyst.

Find out how we are applying leading-edge science and the development of improved measurement procedures to underpin some of the most challenging and important measurements made in the UK.
Read pages 7 & 8 to find out how our knowledge transfer activities can help you.
Access best practice guides
Download case studies
Join the Measurement Network
Follow us on twitter

Other highlights include:
Determining biofuel origin and quality
Toxicity testing using microarray technology
Research to support diabetes treatment
Improving the success of organ transplants
Establishing protein traceability

No need to defibrillate yourself like James Bond…just rely on LGC’s digoxin reference materials

You may remember the scene in Casino Royale where James Bond tries to defibrillate himself after being poisoned by a Vesper Martini. He develops ventricular tachycardia, an increased rhythm of the heart, which can lead to ventricular fibrillation and sudden death. His martini had been tainted with digoxin; a drug instrumental in the treatment of congestive heart failure and cardiac arrhythmia.

Digoxin has a narrow therapeutic range in humans – above the therapeutic range and digoxin is highly toxic, as Bond found out. Below the therapeutic range and the treatment is ineffective.

LGC, the UK’s designated National Measurement Institute for chemical and bioanalytical measurement, has developed two new clinical reference materials for digoxin.

The reference materials, which closely match the upper and lower levels for digoxin monitoring, are both certified as European Reference Materials (ERM®) and made under LGC’s accreditation to ISO Guide 34 for the production of reference materials. They are intended for use by clinical laboratories for determining digoxin levels in human serum through method validation and performance monitoring of methods, providing an effective means of measurement traceability.

Gill Holcombe, Head of Reference Material Production at LGC explains: “Assays for determining levels of digoxin in human serum are independently calibrated but without traceability to an accepted high order reference material. This means that concentration values may not be comparable between different methods or hospital laboratories, posing potential risks to patients. LGC’s new reference materials will improve confidence in measurement, helping clinicians to ensure optimum therapeutic effect and minimise the occurrence of adverse events.”

The reference materials, ERM®-DA200a Frozen Human Serum – Digoxin, High Level and ERM®-DA201a Frozen Human Serum – Digoxin, Low Level are available from LGC Standards (www.lgcstandards.com), the division of LGC that provides products and services to improve measurement in the laboratory. For prices and ordering information, please email: uksales@lgcstandards.com or call +44 (0)20 8943 8480.

This work was funded by the UK National Measurement System.