- Physical Sciences
Dr. Juan Carlos Raposo (service technician) Phone: 94 601 5443 e-mail: juancarlos.raposo@ehu.es Dra. Beatriz Abad (service technician) Phone: 94 601 3197 e-mail: beatriz.abad@ehu.es Dr. Luis Bartolomé (service technician) Phone: 94 601 3473 e-mail: luis.bartolome@ehu.es Dr. Isabel Collado Phone: 94 601 5432 e-mail: isabel.collado@ehu.es Dr. Patricia Navarro Villaverde Phone: 94 601 3197 email: patricia.navarro@ehu.es
Access to the unit of Central Analysis Service Bizkaia involves meeting the requirements set forth in the Protocol for access to SGIker and the services it provides.
The use of analytical techniques by numerous research groups from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), and by different companies and technology centres from the milieu is becoming more and more common, with growing requirements in terms of precision, accuracy and sensitivity, etc. Numerous areas of industry, services and public institutions are warning about the need to carry out analytical determinations with totally different aims and objectives. Thus, these companies and institutions are making major financial investment with this in mind, either by purchasing the necessary instrumentation or by outsourcing the relevant chemical analyses. Within the university milieu, the use of analytical techniques is demanded by numerous research groups from different areas of knowledge. The use of a General Service significantly facilitates the management and use of the analytical techniques available. This General Service emerged with the aim of providing back-up for research, being at the disposal of the University itself, public institutions and companies. The infrastructure it possesses enables a great variety of problems to be dealt with in the field of research and technological development. Attention should also be drawn to the fact that this Central Analysis Service improves the use of existing infrastructures, which contributes towards better returns on resources and, therefore, towards a reduction in expenditure in this area by the University of the Basque Country / EHU.
Range of services offered The Analysis Service attempts to cover very diverse fields within applied chemical analysis, ranging from the analysis of water, soils, sediments and foods, etc. to the development of analytical methods applied to clinical or toxicological fields. In this respect, different types of service are offered that could be grouped into three categories: Fine-tuning of a familiar analytical methodology For those cases in which the customer is aware of a suitable analytical method or is considering using an already-established standard or method. Development of different analytical methodologies for unknown compounds In these cases, since the substance to be determined is unknown, the service will ask the customer for all the information required to start checking different analytical techniques in order to deal with the problem being taken into consideration, in the sense of characterizing the unknown compound or compounds with the help of the most suitable techniques - including, where necessary, a confirmation technique, possibly with the help of combined techniques that may include mass spectrometry. Research work and/or studies In these cases, the Service will take part in the research considered by one or more groups by clearly defining the objectives to be attained in such research and the work plan to be developed. By way of example, some of the fields and analyses offered by the Service are summarised below: Bioanalytical Area Analysis of drugs in pharmaceutical formulations Analytical methods will be fine-tuned or developed for determining drugs in their formulations which do not require very high sensitivity. However, these may require great selectivity, as the active component may contain impurities that could give rise to major side effects. The pharmaceutical company increasingly needs not only the active component to be analysed, but also these impurities. Analysis of drugs in biological fluids (plasma, urine, faeces, etc.) Highly sensitive analytical methods will be put into practice to monitor levels of concentration in the biological fluid of pharmaceutical compounds. This type of determination requires the fine-tuning of a method for treating the biological method which will include liquid-liquid or solid-liquid extraction methods. This type of analysis is, generally speaking, carried out using chromatographic and electrophoretic methods. Pharmacokinetic studies Determining levels of plasma concentration in compounds of pharmaceutical interest tends to involve trying to establish the relevant pharmacokinetic profiles. Liquid chromatography with different types of detection is the most commonly-used technique. Drug metabolism The current trend in the field of Metabolomics is to have a bearing on the monitoring not only of the active component, but also on determining its metabolites. In this respect, the recent purchase of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry equipment will enable this type of analysis to be carried out that has been requested both by pharmaceutical industries and research groups in bioanalytics. Food Area In the food area, the control not only of raw materials is of vital importance, but also of end products. The type of analysis offered covers the following: Determining metal ions in foods Analysis of toxic substances in foods Spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques will be applied when carrying put these analyses, following prior treatment of the sample. Geological Area Different analyses are offered within this area, among which are included the following: Tracing analysis in underground water Given the type of tracer used in hydrogeology (fluorescein, rhodamine, iodide, lithium, etc.,), techniques are used such as fluorometry, capillary electrophoresis and atomic absorption spectrometry. Analysis of rocks, minerals and metal ores. The metal ions in this type of matrix are determined, mainly via emission spectroscopy with inductively-coupled plasma (ICP-AES), given that a multi-elemental analysis is generally required and in very varied levels of concentration. Area of the Environment Analysis of urban and industrial atmospheres Persistence of insecticides Analysis of organic compounds in contaminated soils Analysis of organic compounds in sentry organisms Forensic Area Analysis of ink in documents Isotopic analysis in different matrices (biological and environmental) Artistic Heritage Determining pigments in works of art In the field of artistic heritage conservation, in which the sample is of crucial importance, non-destructive techniques are required or those that require a very small size of sample. Capillary electrophoresis offers the advantages of being a technique that requires a volume of picoliters and possesses separation power which is greater than that of liquid chromatography. Thus, this technique will be applied to this type of analysis. Determining liquid and protein agglutinants In a painting, the pigments are accompanied by agglulitants that need to be analysed. Chromatographic methods (HPLC and gaseous chromatography) are the ones used in this type of determination. Industrial Protection Industry requires monitoring of its processes and also the characterization of its end products. The commercialisation of these products requires a series of standards with regard to specifications, which make it necessary to analyse such products. The Service attempts to provide the following two types of analysis: Characterization of new materials Monitoring of industrial processes which will require the use of different analytical methodologies, according to the type of industry.
University of the basque country UPV/EHUScience and technology faculty Edificio CD3Martina Casiano research building at UPV/EHU science parkBº Sarriena, s/n 48940 Leioa (Vizcaya)
