Join us at Pittcon 2020 to celebrate 20 years of Axion Training Labs!! Axion is giving away Dr. Polite’s personal 2000 Porsche!! Visit our Booth at Pittcon for your chance to win!!

It has been 20 years since we launched Axion Training Institute.  Since then, we’ve had 12,000 wonderful scientists come through our classes.  In celebration of that milestone, I’m giving away my car!  It is a 2000 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 (that is a 996 to you Porsche-philes).  So why do such a nutty thing?  I’m not sure, but these are the things that drove me to this decision:

I really want to give back to my customers.  I like cars.  I like my customers.  Seemed like a good fit!
As most of you know, I have run to work almost every day for 20 years, so I don’t really use my car.
That is about 20,000 miles, including 3 runs at -6F (that’s like absolute zero in C!).
The car was made in 2000, the same year we moved into our current facility
I’ve been driving stick-shift Porsche 911’s for 30 years.  I’m ready for a break!
So far it has made everybody’s head spin!

 

Introduction to Chromatography

Dr. Polite opens his training courses with a simple definition for the separation science that is chromatography.
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Watch Lee’s Lectures Online With Agilent University

The Axion team has been hard at work creating teaching modules for Agilent University’s online learning. Access the following courses that have already been published here, and keep an eye out for an upcoming series on specialty inlets and detectors:

GC-0GEN-1001r – GC Separations Simplified
GC-0GEN-1010r – Understanding Split Injections GC
GC-0GEN-1011r – Understanding Splitless Injections GC
GC-0GEN-1020r – GC Calibration and Quantitative Analysis
GC-0GEN-1030s – Rules of the Road: What to Consider When Developing a GC Method
GC-0GEN-1030r – Understanding the Benefits of Electronic Pressure Control (EPC)
GC-0GEN-1031r – Practical GC Theory: The Van Deemter Talk
GC-0GEN-1050r – Understanding How Temperature Programming Works
GC-0GEN-2070s – Understanding GC Columns
GC-0GEN-2001r – Optimizing Your GC Method (Analysis Time)
GC-0GEN-2090r – Factors to Consider When Optimizing Your Method

Axion Team Presents Four Posters at 2017 PittCon

For those who could not make the trip to Chicago for the Pittsburgh Conference this year, here are the research posters we prepared for presentation. Our team of interns and resident scientists put a lot of work into four unique applications of chromatography, and we had a busy week of presenting our work to many interested chromatographers.

Automated Pre-Column Derivatization of Amino Acids by HPLC: Mr. Amino, Meet Mr. Roboto
From Booze to Mobile Phase: Ethanol Leads the Way to a Chemical Free HPLC
Fast GC: Good Separations in Less Than 10 Seconds
The Determination of Ethanol in Fermentation Off-Gas using Real-Time GC with a Modified GC

Lee Helps Agilent Announce Intuvo 9000 GC

 Lee Polite (Founder and President of Axion Labs) and Mike McMullen (CEO of Agilent Technologies) pictured with the new

Lee Polite (Founder and President of Axion Labs) and Mike McMullen (CEO of Agilent Technologies) pictured with the new “Agilent 9000 Intuvo” GC

Agilent introduced their revolutionary new type of GC on August 30, 2016, at their headquarters in Little Falls, Delaware:  the Agilent 9000 Intuvo.Six years ago Dr. Polite was one of only 12 thought leaders from around the world called in to help Agilent with the design criteria. Lee was often referred to as the “voice of the customer” during the design process.

Six years ago Dr. Polite was one of only 12 thought leaders from around the world called in to help Agilent with the design criteria. Lee was often referred to as the “voice of the customer” during the design process.

The goal was to make the GC easier to use while not sacrificing any of the chromatographic performance. It has been six years in the making, and the result is pretty impressive. No more column nuts or ferrules to measure correctly, install correctly, and tighten correctly. No more leaks (the GC leak tests itself on demand or automatically before each run).

The new GC employs micro-fluidic chips to make connections, serve as retention gaps or guard columns, allow for back-flushing, and facilitate dual column installation. This is not a dumbed-down machine but a sophisticated scientific instrument that is easy to use.

Check out Dr. Polite’s video on GC innovation featured by Agilent while unveiling the new line of instruments:

Ask Me Anything with Dr. Lee Polite

ScienceRedditThe American Chemical Society hosted a Reddit AMA featuring our own Lee Polite answering chromatography questions fielded from all over the world. Check out the results, and feel free to chime in with your on questions for an ongoing discussion.

Gas Chromatography Made Simple

Dr. Lee N. Polite explains the complex topic of chromatography, using a simple shopping mall analogy.

Axion on the cover of Gases and Instrumentation

Mag CoverThis article on the use of alternative carrier gases was originally a poster we presented at the 2014 Pittsburgh Conference. Our three young interns (Lee’s two sons and their very bright friend Jack) did the work and research, Lee offered suggestions/direction, and Mary Beth kept them from burning down the lab! The publisher from Gases & Instrumentation saw the then-high school students fielding questions at PittCon and was impressed enough to make our paper their feature article for the month.  They also got such a kick out of the picture, they decided to put us on the cover. It really is a great article on the impact of carrier gas choice in GC.