Busy week learning to use the new ICPMS. Pretty flippin’ amazing instrument. Reaffirms my admiration for Bill and Dave. A lot of nuances and software to learn, but do-able. Agricola and Biringuccio could’ve used one of these. Of course, they’d have needed 208 VAC single phase power …
Interesting approach to polyatomic ion interferences- run the beam through a He chamber to slow down the large cross section ions and use the octopole to steer the beam into the off-axis chamber exit and into the quadrupole mass filter. Clever monkeys.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Hey Gauss!
How about a post on that Picospin NMR? Can I get one for my kitchen to ck the caffeine in my coffee every morning?
We’ve had some trouble getting our R&D chemists to use it and I’m up to my gills in metallurgy. The trouble is that PhD’s are steeped in high field NMR. Implementation here requires some risk taking. Nobody wants to be the person who misses important peaks in an R&D sample or for an in-process check. People value being up to date on the latest high field techniques, not 1960’s era field strengths.
If you can walk on to a high field instrument, why do otherwise? If the 45 MHz instrument was all that is available, then I think it would see some use. Our materials are rather complex and air sensitive. This, plus the general lack of resolution amounts to an insurmountable conceptual barrier for many busy chemists trying to get results.