Chemistry Matters' Blog

You have had a spill… don’t panic, everything will be fine. Accidents happen. It is what you do next that is important. I have worked on many spills and here are what I believe are four of the most important things from a chemist’s perspective.

In 2015, Chemistry Matters Inc. (CMI) provided the scientific support for Nexen at Long Lake during their emulsion release. As part of that role, I pored over data every evening, often long through the night to be able to communicate results to regulators and Nexen management and to put together the next day's...

My last blog post on the need for having a trusted chemist on your oil spill response team created a bit of a stir on LinkedIn with everyone insisting they have a more important role or a role that is of higher priority. Thank you all for the comments and the responses, this is what social media is about!

When they do happen, oil spills can be nasty, and the company responsible will likely enter emergency panic mode as it responds to contain and clean up the oil.

I was recently at a lunch meeting with a client to re-engage me in a historical project that I worked on many years before but had stalled due to lack of funding. We were discussing the project once again, and it was to begin in short order . . . But, even though I stay incredibly busy with my existing workload, I...

I am always fascinated with the use of the latest analytical chemistry techniques in solving unique environmental, geochemical, and arson cases and projects. My interest in these techniques coincides with this also being the ‘golden age’ of analytical chemistry. Analytical chemistry has recently developed so...

You may have heard about an analytical technique called 2DGC or Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography. Or perhaps you have not.

This past week, I was able to attend the Dioxin conference in Florence, Italy.  The conference is 36 years old, and it was started for the topic of Dioxins. Over the years, the conference has expanded to cover many more contaminants, but today, it mostly covers everything on persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

This is the conclusion of the blog series on 5 outlooks of Environmental Forensics.

This is part 5 of the blog series on the 5 outlooks of Environmental Forensics.