5

In ten years, equipment
originated more than one hundred articles

RAQUEL DO CARMO SANTOS

Professor Marcos Eberlin: “The pentaquadrupole is a complete laboratory”

Ten years have passed since the pentaquadrupole mass spectrometer was installed at the Institute of Chemistry (IQ) at Unicamp. And this first decade of activities is being a cause for celebration for the Thomson Laboratory team, as “penta” – as it was nicknamed by users – has already produced more than one hundred publications in specialized magazines and has trained around 30 specialists in the field, some , including coordinating new research groups. The only one in operation in the world, “penta” was the seed of the Thomson Laboratory (http://thomson.iqm.unicamp.br) which is today a world reference in applications of the technique in diverse areas, such as chemistry, physics, biochemistry, medical and pharmaceutical sciences. “The marriage of 'penta' with organic chemicals was perfect”, comments the Laboratory coordinator, professor Marcos N. Eberlin.

The coordinator considers that bringing together specialists in different areas in a laboratory, but mainly in organic chemistry, was the decisive factor that allowed the equipment to be explored at its “strongest point”, and to successfully celebrate its ten years. Eberlin explains that organic chemistry always tries to answer the reason for its chemical events, thus needing to understand the mechanisms of its reactions and, precisely, in this area that the equipment is unique. According to Eberlin, “penta” is a complete laboratory for studying reactions involving ions, as it has five connected quadrupoles. Thus, all operations necessary to carry out the reactions, such as the formation, purification, selection and reaction of these ions, as well as the separation and structural characterization of the products, are carried out simultaneously in real time.

History – Researchers Claudemir Lúcio do Lago, Eberlin and Concetta Montanile Kascheres – one of the pioneers in the development of Mass Spectrometry in Brazil – formed the team for the thematic project presented to Fapesp which, in 1993, brought the equipment to the “conviviality” at the University . Concetta, project coordinator, recalls that, in 1992, US$360 was released to purchase the machine. “I didn't sleep for several nights, as we were going through a difficult situation in Brazil with the currency change and annual inflation of 600%”, she comments.

It took just over a year to complete the purchase and the Chemistry Institute then came into possession of the fourth, and most complete, pentaquadrupole in the world. The others were located at universities in France, Australia and the United States (Purdue University). After the euphoria surrounding the arrival of the equipment – ​​which according to Concetta was also widely celebrated – another two years were needed to develop the various control software, which were quite sophisticated, and thus put the “penta” into full operation. Currently, Concetta estimates that the spectrometer should be worth around US$1 million.

“Ten years of working with the software were not 'soft', no”, jokes Valmir Fascio Juliano, professor at the Department of Chemistry at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. It was he who, in his doctorate under the coordination of the professor at the Department of Chemistry at the University of São Paulo, Claudemir Lúcio Lago, developed the pentaquadrupole software. Going back to the past, he remembers that his “hardwork” began at exactly 15:50 pm on November 14, 1993, when he decided to innovate in modern Windows systems. “Ten years ago Windows was new, but we invested in it”, he emphasizes. Professor Claudemir also highlights a unique quality of “penta”: “The set is very versatile and generates multidimensional spectra, as up to three quadrupoles can be scanned simultaneously”.

---------------------------------------------

Publishing champions

In 1992, when he was graduating from the Chemistry Institute, Fábio César Gozzo had no idea that ten years later he would celebrate the “penta” anniversary and the milestone of 30 articles published in specialized journals. Now a postdoctoral fellow at the Thomson Laboratory, Gozzo is one of the champions in publishing studies on penta. Throughout his career, carrying out what he called a “treatise on sinister ions”, Gozzo studied the behavior of various ions, such as the 14 possible structures of the CH3SO+ ion, in 1995. He also studied the unprecedented electronic structure of hetarine ions, in 1999, and even discovered the first non-classical dystonic ion, in 2000.

Luiz Alberto B. Moraes, now a professor at Universidade São Francisco and still one of the laboratory's main collaborators, published 26 articles originating in “penta” and Regina Sparrapan, a volunteer researcher at Unicamp's Chemistry Institute, has already registered 23 publications among renowned journals Journal of American Chemical Society, Journal of Organic Chemistry, and Analytical Chemistry. In the coming months, a new mark of success will be registered in the journal Chemical Review, which brings the main reviews of chemistry subjects and which has rare articles by Brazilian researchers. A review article on the reaction named after Professor Eberlin will be presented to the academic community and marking another point in the great success story of “penta”. (RCS)

---------------------------------------------

Top