Plant card
22 September 2014
Laurie Caron – Plant Card Latin name: Anaphalis margaritacea (L.) Benth. & Hook Common names: Immortal, Immortal silver, Life-everlasting, Anaphale daisy. Anaphalis margaritacea is a herbaceous, perennial and widespread in the temperate boreal zone1. It is often found in fields and roadsides (Figure 1). You can easily recognize this plant by its long stem (30-100
Discoveries
17 September 2014
Laurie Caron – Discoveries By chance last week, I made the discovery on the web from a Quebec company that specializes in the sale of native wild plants in Quebec. These Horticulture Indigo. Since 1994, they specialize in the production of native plants of Quebec and have to their credit over 250 species of seeds
Plant card
15 September 2014
Laurie Caron – Plant card Latin name: Cornus canadensis (L.) Common Names: Dogwood Canada, Four-time Mullets, Dwarf cornel, Bunch-berry. Cornus canadensis (L.) known as the four-time or Canadian dogwood is an herb that is found mostly in the undergrowth of the boreal forest of Quebec. An herb is a plant which by definition does not
Popularization
8 September 2014
Alexis St-Gelais – Popularization I wrote some time ago about retention indices in GC-FID and the advantages of using two columns to analyze an essential oil. Since this is a central aspect of the work we do using GC, I wished to detail a real-case analysis, allowing you to better understand our methodology. Throughout the
Summary of articles
2 September 2014
Laurie Caron – Summary of articles During my graduate studies in natural products chemistry at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi (UQAC), I had the opportunity to publish a few articles related to the topic of my research. Today, I present the first of them, it deals with a new method for analysis of volatile
Popularization
Alexis St-Gelais – Popularization [Minor addenda to the original text were made on March 23, 2019, and are noted in green] An important task of analytical chemistry is to select the detector that best suits the purpose of an analysis. Each detector has indeed its pros and cons. In the area of essential oils, FID and
Popularization
25 August 2014
Alexis St-Gelais – Popularization I mentioned in the first post of this series on GC analyzes that PhytoChemia resorted simultaneously to two capillary columns to analyze essential oils, one polar (Solgel-Wax) and one non-polar (DB-5). The rationale behind this technique will reveal some of the art of interpreting essential oils profiles. We have seen that
Popularization
18 August 2014
Alexis St-Gelais – Popularization My last post gave some details about a detection method commonly used in GC, the FID. Another detector that is widely used for the analysis of volatile compounds, including at PhytoChemia, is the mass spectrometer (MS). Unlike the FID, the MS is a complex detector. Typically, in GC-MS (although other modes
Popularization
11 August 2014
Alexis St-Gelais – Popularization The first part of this series dealt with the principles of separation of volatile molecules upon analysis by GC. After their separation, the analyst has yet to be able to detect molecules as they leave the capillary column, either to identify or quantify them. At PhytoChemia, we mainly use two types
Popularization
4 August 2014
Alexis St-Gelais – Popularization Many of the samples we analyze are sent to us directly as essential oils. However, sometimes a customer wishes to compare plants before their extraction. He may also need a measure of oil yield so that he can plan ahead larger extractions. In these cases, we use two main extraction techniques, each with
