Episode#10: Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy – Cameron Jordan

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 0:06

Hello, everyone to another episode of Nerdrx podcast and I'm your host Barkha. And today we are bringing you another technique which is very, very widely used in our labs. And it is ft IR. And to talk more about ft IR, I have today Cameron Jordan with us. Welcome Cameron to the show.

Cameron Jordan: 0:28

It's good to be here.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 0:31

Awesome. So Cameron, before we go into the topic right away, why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Cameron Jordan: 0:38

Okay, my name is Cameron. I am a first year PhD student at The Ohio State University. I just completed my bachelor's degree less than a month ago, at the same university. I have been working in a spectroscopy lab since February, working on a project that involves Fourier transform infrared, and the quantification of cannabinoids present in hemp.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 1:09

So my very first question to you would be, what is FDI? Odd? And what about it got you interested in it.

Cameron Jordan: 1:17

So I was actually more interested in the cannabis industry, rather than the specific spectroscopy that we would be doing. But I saw a very good opportunity to work in an analytical laboratory and get the skills that I would need to continue as a professional in the industry. And I just kind of learned all of the material that I needed to in order to use the technology to create models, to collect data, and to ultimately communicate my work. So I got interested in it because I was taking a class for my major food analysis. And the professor was, I really just enjoyed working with him. And I approached him about working as an undergraduate in his lab, and he agreed. So that's how I've gotten here. So far. str is a spectroscopic method that uses the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. That further that is broken down into about two subclasses of FTR. There's near infrared and mid infrared, they just utilize different regions of the spectrum.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 2:49

Okay, and why do we need ft IR? Like, what is Why is it so important? And what are its uses.

Cameron Jordan: 2:58

So ft IR is very useful in compound identification. We do a lot of classification. And it's also very important and analytical laboratories, organic chemists use it to kind of identify different functional groups that are present and target analytes. And it can just be used to create like prediction models, as in the case of my research.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 3:30

Okay, and would you be able to run us through the steps involved in FDI? And like, how long does an actual experiment take?

Cameron Jordan: 3:39

Yeah, so it depends on the type of FTR you're doing. In the case of the near infrared that I'm using for my research. Currently, it takes about 10 seconds to collect a scan. Right now I'm trying to just scan whole plant material from the cannabis species and see if the signal is strong enough from that. If the signal is not strong enough, we can further powder eyes, and then just reduce the particle size and see if that works. If that doesn't work, we'll have to move into a further extraction method. And that can take a little bit more time. But it is a very, it's very quick. That was one thing that I picked up on when I first started working was that, wow, it's actually really easy to collect the data for this. But in the case of like mid infrared, for example, it can take a little longer depending on what solvent you use to extract the components and how long it takes them to evaporate because a lot of the times mid infrared is used mostly on the crystallize samples,

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 5:02

right? I remember, in my PhD, I used to do synthesis. And after our final step like before going to NMR, or mass spec, we would first quickly run to the FT IR two, because our compounds had a very distinct carbonyl groups. And if we see the carbonyl group at 1780, if I'm not wrong, we will be like, Okay, we have made progress. So it is a very quick and easy and I think, like a robust technique to identify your functional groups.

Cameron Jordan: 5:39

Yes. And like you said, in the case of synthesis, you can use it to monitor the progress of organic reactions. And I just think it's overall a relatively very cool technique.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 5:51

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's really underrated. But it gives you a lot of information, especially for us when we used in context of a monitoring our reactions, and it was great. Like, if you don't see the carbonyl group, there is no point going to the next step of the reaction anyways. So what would you say? Is there any alternative techniques you can use other than FDI.

Cameron Jordan: 6:17

So there are actually a lot of alternative techniques to FTR. Like you mentioned, NMR is a very, it's a rapidly growing field, especially in the food industry, for rapid identification, and also quantification. For my project, we actually use LCMS, IMS data to serve as our reference data. And that's the kind of technique that we're trying to replace or speed up, and the analytical testing process of him right now.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 6:56

So let's talk about the expertise. Is it an easy technique to learn for a completely newbie? If someone has absolutely no idea of what ft IR is?

Cameron Jordan: 7:09

Yeah, um, I can actually answer this from the side of a newbie, because I had no idea what infrared was before I even started today. And it was, honestly the easiest science that I have ever done to collect data, there was no, no tricky extraction that had to be done. No, derivatization? No, it was just a very straightforward technique, you scan what you're trying to analyze, and then you collect the spectra. And then once you've collected enough spectra, you can move on with the modeling.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 7:51

Okay, and is the analysis part difficult.

Cameron Jordan: 7:55

So the analysis is it can be relatively difficult, we use a lot of multivariate statistics, like I mentioned, partially squared regression. We're also looking at principal component analysis and Simka, which are classification methods. And we are also now looking at more computer based modeling such as support vector machine, and artificial neural network algorithms.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 8:29

Okay, it sounds like an easy technique to learn. So what would you say are the advantages and disadvantages of ft IR?

Cameron Jordan: 8:40

I would say an advantage of ft IR is definitely the time of analysis, you can almost get almost instantaneous results like in the case of the near infrared, the 10 second scanning it's very easy for a new person to use. I would say the disadvantages are sometimes the signal cannot be strong enough from some of the target matrices that we are working with. And there can also be a lot of noise introduced into some of the spectra. So you kind of need to know the chemistry behind. Why does your spectra look like this? Should it look like this? And what does it mean if it looks different than what you expected?

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 9:33

So how do you deal with the noise issue?

Cameron Jordan: 9:37

So there are a few different things that we can do. on the hardware side, we can adjust and change some of the parameters that we use to collect the data to make sure that the signal to noise ratio is good enough. There's some pre processing that can be done Noise Removal Pulling filters to kind of filter out some of the noise and kind of pull out more of the specific regions of the spectrum that you're looking at. The filtering is a good technique, it gets you more clear spectra, essentially. But before we pre process our data, and before we build our model, we just like to make sure that the spectra is it makes sense.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 10:31

Okay, so let's discuss the cost associated with it. Is this technique easy to set up in any lab? And once you have the machine? What about the consumables? Is it expensive or affordable,

Cameron Jordan: 10:49

it's relatively affordable as compared to like an LCMS. For my project, the sensor that I use is about$5,000, compared to an LC, Ms. Ms being 350,000. It also depends on the type of hardware that you're using. So there are a range of infrared devices. So there's more portable options that are relatively inexpensive, and I think would be very good options for labs that are growing or just starting out. And then there are also some benchtop techniques that are around 16,000 for one of the portable monitors, and then the benchtops can get very, very expensive, but I don't have an exact cost for those ones.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 11:44

Right. I remember the FDR, which I was using had a diamond on its base. And if that diamond would get scratched up that replacing that was very expensive. So we always had to be super careful while cleaning. And that was the one important thing that we were taught.

Cameron Jordan: 12:09

Yeah. So in reference to like the detectors, like you mentioned, it depends on the crystal that you're trying to use as well, like you mentioned, the diamond ones can be a bit more expensive, but they're generally more reliable, and less prone to breaking. For example, there's zinc selenite crystals that are very easy to break. I haven't done it yet, but and I hope I never do.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 12:36

Yeah. So instead of Fun fact, about FTR

Cameron Jordan: 12:44

M, there's ft IR, is can just be called IR, but the TE kind of makes it more applicable. Before the use of Fourier transform, it was very hard to interpret the spectra, but a lot of modern compounds such as like NMR, it's not called ft NMR. So I think the FT is very specific to IR

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 13:15

IR. Okay. And as always, my last question to you would be, do you have any interesting articles or protocols or any resources that would help our listeners and I would link that down in the description?

Cameron Jordan: 13:32

Yeah, so my lab recently published a paper kind of what I have been doing in the with the hemp as well it's called a novel handheld FTNIR spectroscopic approach for real time screening of major cannabinoid content and him that was done by my peer mentor. Siyu Yao, okay.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 13:58

I will make sure to have that linked down in the description. And well, that was it for today's episode. ft IR. is a very cool and easy technique to learn from what we have listened. And I hope listeners you found this interesting. And thank you so much, Cameron, for giving us your time and walking us through FTR.

Cameron Jordan: 14:27

Of course. Thanks for having me on Barkha.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 14:30

Yes. And listeners. I will catch you next week for another episode for the podcast. And in meanwhile, if you have any suggestions about topic, or if you wish to come on the podcast and discuss a technique, please feel free to email me at Barkha at Nerdrx podcast.com. And remember, it's good to be a nerd bye