Alex Hodgson

VUV Analytics United States

Biography:

Alex Hodgson is an Applications Chemist at VUV Analytics, Inc. His current research focuses on vacuum ultraviolet applications for the flavor and fragrance industries, among a variety of other VUV-related endeavors. Prior to coming to VUV Analytics, Alex was a member of the Center for Disease Control's team in Atlanta, where his research was on tobacco exposure biomarkers. He earned a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.S. in biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Short description about presentation:

Fuels analysis is performed using a variety of methodologies, including GC-FID Detailed Hydrocarbon Analysis (DHA) and multidimensional GC for gasolines, and Fluorescent Indicator Adsorption (FIA) for jet fuels. However, these methods have several drawbacks, including long run times, complex configurations, and in the case of FIA, grave concerns over the availability and quality of the dye required to perform the analysis.

Gas chromatography - vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy (VUV) is a relatively new analytical methodology that utilizes molecules’ unique spectral absorbance fingerprints in the vacuum ultraviolet wavelength range (125-240 nm) to identify and quantitate analytes. A single GC-VUV hardware configuration can perform PIONA-class quantitative analysis ' including speciation of conjugated dienes ' in gasoline samples, as well as measure total saturates, aromatics, and di-aromatics in jet fuel samples.