Robert Synovec

Last updated

Robert Synovec
Born
Minnesota, United States
Alma mater Bethel College
Iowa State
Awards Marcel E Golay Award
GC×GC Scientific Achievement Award
Scientific career
Fields Chemistry, analytical chemistry, gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, and chemometrics
Institutions University of Washington
Doctoral advisor Edward Yeung

Robert E Synovec (born 1959) is an American analytical chemist and professor of chemistry at the University of Washington where he specializes in multidimensional separations and chemometrics. [1] Synovec has received several awards for his contributions to analytical chemistry and separation science, including the GC×GC Scientific Achievement Award and the Marcel E Golay Award, which is given for recognition of a lifetime of achievement in capillary chromatography. [2]

Contents

Education

Synovec was born in 1959 to Eugene "Gene" Synovec and Joan Synovec. [3] Synovec graduated with a BS in chemistry from Bethel College in 1981. He obtained his PhD from Iowa State in 1986 working under Edward Yeung where he developed detection and data analysis methods for liquid chromatography. He started at the University of Washington in 1986. [4]

Research

Synovec's interests include both instrumentation and chemometrics, the science of using mathematical and statical tools to extract useful information from chemical data. His group were early adopters of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC), a multidimensional separation technique. His group was the first to apply chemometric tools to GC×GC data, which had been largely used for spectroscopy up to that point. [5] His group also introduced valve-based modulation techniques to GC×GC, which they have continued to develop, while early instruments used thermal modulation. Another focus of Synovec's lab is the development of comprehensive three-dimensional gas chromatography (GC3), a 3D extension of GC×GC which employs three separation columns and two modulators. [6] His research lab has commercialized chemometric software for analyzing GC×GC data. [7] He has been affiliated with the Center for Process Analysis and Control (formerly the Center for Process Analytical Chemistry). [8]

Synovec has graduated some 40 PhD students in addition to numerous Master's students and undergraduates. As of 2023 his publication record includes nearly 300 journal articles, with an h-index estimated to be in the 50s. [9]

Related Research Articles

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Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separation isolates analytes. Qualitative analysis identifies analytes, while quantitative analysis determines the numerical amount or concentration.

In chemical analysis, chromatography is a laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture into its components. The mixture is dissolved in a fluid solvent called the mobile phase, which carries it through a system on which a material called the stationary phase is fixed. Because the different constituents of the mixture tend to have different affinities for the stationary phase and are retained for different lengths of time depending on their interactions with its surface sites, the constituents travel at different apparent velocities in the mobile fluid, causing them to separate. The separation is based on the differential partitioning between the mobile and the stationary phases. Subtle differences in a compound's partition coefficient result in differential retention on the stationary phase and thus affect the separation.

Chemometrics is the science of extracting information from chemical systems by data-driven means. Chemometrics is inherently interdisciplinary, using methods frequently employed in core data-analytic disciplines such as multivariate statistics, applied mathematics, and computer science, in order to address problems in chemistry, biochemistry, medicine, biology and chemical engineering. In this way, it mirrors other interdisciplinary fields, such as psychometrics and econometrics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry</span> Analytical method

Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) is an analytical method that combines the features of gas-chromatography and mass spectrometry to identify different substances within a test sample. Applications of GC–MS include drug detection, fire investigation, environmental analysis, explosives investigation, food and flavor analysis, and identification of unknown samples, including that of material samples obtained from planet Mars during probe missions as early as the 1970s. GC–MS can also be used in airport security to detect substances in luggage or on human beings. Additionally, it can identify trace elements in materials that were previously thought to have disintegrated beyond identification. Like liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry, it allows analysis and detection even of tiny amounts of a substance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metabolomics</span> Scientific study of chemical processes involving metabolites

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ion mobility spectrometry</span> Analytical technique used to separate and identify ionized molecules in the gas phase

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">David E. Clemmer</span>

David E. Clemmer is an analytical chemist and the Distinguished Professor and Robert and Marjorie Mann Chair of Chemistry at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where he leads the Clemmer Group. Clemmer develops new scientific instruments for ion mobility mass spectrometry (IMS/MS), including the first instrument for nested ion-mobility time-of-flight mass spectrometry. He has received a number of awards, including the Biemann Medal in 2006 "for his pioneering contributions to the integration of ion mobility separations with a variety of mass spectrometry technologies."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unresolved complex mixture</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Two-dimensional chromatography</span>

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References

  1. "Robert E. Synovec". washington.edu. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  2. "Robert E Synovec Awards". acs.com. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  3. "Eugene Synovec". parkrapidsenterprise.com. June 27, 2012. Retrieved May 8, 2023.
  4. "Robert E synovec". illinois.edu. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
    • Bruckner, Carsten A.; Prazen, Bryan J.; Synovec, Robert E (June 5, 1998). "Comprehensive Two-Dimensional High-Speed Gas Chromatography with Chemometric Analysis". Analytical Chemistry. American Chemical Society (ACS). 70 (14): 2796–2804. doi:10.1021/ac980164m. ISSN   1554-8929.
    • Watson, Nathanial E.; Bahaghighat, Daniel H.; Cui, Ke; Synovec, Robert E (December 30, 2016). "Comprehensive Three-Dimensional Gas Chromatography with Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry". Analytical Chemistry. American Chemical Society (ACS). 89 (3): 1793–1800. doi:10.1021/acs.analchem.6b04112. PMID   28208275.
  5. "ChromaTOF Tile". leco.com. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  6. "CPAC". uw.edu. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  7. "Robert E Synovec". Google Scholar. Retrieved September 6, 2023.