JAAS 30^th anniversary

Together with the former Chairs, I have the pleasure to introduce the first 2016 issue of JAAS to you. All of our past/present Chairs have contributed to the content of this themed issue to commemorate that in 2015, JAAS celebrated its 30^th anniversary! To introduce the issue a number of our Chairs have written a few words. We hope that you enjoy their recollections and the papers that have been included in this themed issue.

Frank Vanhaecke Detlef Günther Gary Hieftje Joe Caruso Barry Sharp Les Ebdon

Celebrating an anniversary

When JAAS was launched in 1986, I was in the last year of my BSc studies and when asked whether I had thought about a topic for the research project at the end of the MSc degree, I typically answered that I hadn't given it much consideration yet, but that it wouldn't be in analytical chemistry. I guess that was still one of the symptoms from the overdose of titrations and gravimetric determinations that we had to endure. I don't know what happened, how it happened and when I changed my mind, but I ended up doing that research project in the Department of Analytical Chemistry and eagerly started a PhD afterwards. After some publications in obviously less prestigious journals, I submitted what I considered as the most important paper resulting from my PhD for publication in JAAS and was delighted when it got accepted after some constructive criticism from the referees. One of these referees even provided a figure that expressed my findings better than the original figure I came up with. In the forthcoming years, JAAS remained my favorite journal as it published many papers that provided me with more insight into the things I was doing, giving me novel ideas for research directions. Later on, I was invited to join the Advisory Board and shortly thereafter the Editorial Board, of which I am currently Chair (until June this year). That is why I was given the privilege to invite colleagues to contribute a paper to be included in this themed issue. I have a wide interest, some would claim that I cannot choose, but in this instance, I focused on isotopic analysis and I am glad to see that the papers included in this issue illustrate so well the current progress in this research domain and the many contexts in which isotopic analysis can provide relevant information.

The selection of papers on isotopic analysis included in this issue also nicely illustrate the versatility of, and dynamics within, atomic spectrometry as a whole, as they report on instrument development (use of 10¹³ ohm resistors in TIMS, allowing the use of the robust Faraday detector at lower analyte amount and thus, ion beam intensity), method development (improved ways to correct for mass bias in multi-collector ICP-MS, better handling of spectral interference, alternative ways for sample preparation and introduction) and real-life applications. These applications are everything but routine, as, e.g., the simultaneous exploitation of isotope ratios of several elements (isotopomics?) in bioindicators, the possibility of tracing engineered nanoparticles on the basis of their isotopic composition, and unravelling an individual's dietary habits via isotopic analysis of dental tissue are explored. None of this would be possible without the hard work of NMIs (National Metrology Institutes) that provide the community with (isotopic) reference materials. Also a paper describing such metrological efforts is included in this collection. Finally, it pleases me to see that LAMIS, a novel approach for measuring isotope ratios has recently emerged and that a description of the state-of-art is included here.

I might be prejudiced, but I think we have gathered an exciting collection of papers here. I hope that you enjoy reading them. Finally, also a big thanks to all of you for having supported the journal over the past years, either by submitting your work to the journal, reviewing papers and/or reading your colleagues' work. JAAS is the leading journal in atomic spectrometry and has the ambition to further strengthen this position.

Frank Vanhaecke.

The first thirty years

Thirty years ago I had the privilege of being interviewed by John Ottaway, the text of which appeared in the first issue of JAAS¹. At that time, topics of greatest interest included the ICP, with a perceived reduction in attention being devoted to flames and even less to sources such as the dc arc, high-voltage spark, and glow discharge, by that time already viewed as “traditional”. Interestingly, ICP continues to dominate in the field of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, although some traditional sources have re-emerged as strong contenders for specific applications.

A striking example is the laser-generated spark discharge, originally explored in the 1960s by Fred Brech and more recently re-christened Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). Currently perhaps the most extensively studied method, LIBS is now employed widely in industry, forms the basis for several instrument firms, is being used for mineral characterization on Mars, and is the subject of several national and international scientific societies. In this issue, it is utilized in undersea prospecting and characterization.

Another traditional source that has garnered increasing attention is glow discharge (GD). Originally employed only for metals analysis at reduced pressure, several alternative GD configurations are now used at atmospheric pressure, for metals analysis, elemental speciation, and molecular determinations. Examples of novel GD arrangements can be found in this issue and include a GD used for mapping of surface features on both conductive and non-conductive samples, and two GDs struck directly on the surface of solution samples and employed for both emission-based and mass-spectrometric detection.

At the time of the first issue of JAAS (1986), ICP-MS was viewed by many as a laboratory curiosity. Indeed, that first issue contained not a single paper on ICP-MS. How that picture has changed! Now ICP-MS is an indispensable tool in many fields in which high sensitivity and isotope information are required. The present issue underlines that altered trend. Many papers are devoted to isotope analysis and another reveals the importance of high resolution in plasma-source mass spectrometry.

A final trend worth noting is the presence in this issue of a substantial number of younger scientists as corresponding authors. Many have lamented the “graying” (or, for some, the “balding”) of our field and concerns have been expressed over whence the next generation will spring. It is deeply reassuring to witness not only the number of these relative newcomers but also the quality of the science they are pursuing.

Gary M. Hieftje.

The age of materials

The current scientific era has been called the ‘post-genomic era’ and JAAS has seen a proliferation of papers extending the range and scope of atomic spectroscopy into biological and clinical areas. The preceding era has been termed the ‘age of materials’ and atomic spectrometry played a key role in characterising a host of new materials. Many of these new materials were invented to meet very demanding technological needs. From light weight alloys capable of operating at high temperatures to novel plastics with flexibility and strength, these new materials often required high purity specifications as impurities at the part per million or even part per trillion level could seriously affect performance. New techniques of atomic spectroscopy were developed to enable such levels to be monitored. The age of materials was an era in which analytical atomic spectrometry flourished.

At the time of the launch of JAAS, analytical atomic spectrometry had become the most important area of work in many analytical laboratories concerned with materials. Atomic emission spectrometry using arc or spark excitation revolutionised quality control in the steel industry and for many other metallurgical applications. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry was increasingly used for on-line monitoring. Atomic absorption spectrometry had replaced several other techniques as the method of choice for wet chemistry procedures. This was the world into which JAAS was born 30 years ago. A world in which inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry was already impacting by reducing the time to complete multi-element analysis and driving detection limits down still further. Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry had just become commercially available and promised to further reduce analysis time and detection limits.

It seemed that perhaps the pace of innovation in materials science would slow and that the rapidly maturing techniques of analytical atomic spectrometry would become routine, perhaps even boring. Yet the demands of rapidly advancing technology, the space industry and the high performance materials sector ensured that this never happened. Many of the papers in JAAS over the years have reflected these developments and the need for atomic spectroscopists to keep up with materials scientists. This has been particularly true in the last 20 years with the arrival of new kinds of materials classified as nanomaterials.

While engineered nanomaterials, in the range 1 to 100 nm, offer exciting prospects in fields as diverse as drug delivery, consumer products and rheology, they offer formidable challenges to the analytical scientist and some of these challenges have been discussed in the pages of JAAS, including by Labutin in this themed issue. This suggests that there remains a healthy future in the application of analytical atomic spectrometry to materials analysis, and that JAAS will remain a key forum for the dissemination of advances in this area.

Les Ebdon.

A new journal is born

JAAS was conceived in January 1985 on a late night train journey from London to Sheffield. The late John Ottaway and I had attended an Analytical Editorial Board (AEB) meeting at the RSC's Burlington House in Piccadilly and were on our way to the annual board meeting of the Annual Reports on Analytical Atomic Spectrometry (ARAAS). I've recounted this story before, but I think it's worth repeating because in microcosm it's an example of how science, and all that attends it, advances with individuals having ideas and testing them out through the critical but supportive lens of their colleagues. John was Chairman of the AEB (whose principal publication was Analyst) and I was Chairman of ARAAS, the forerunner of the ASU Reviews. Visit the offices of (shall we call them) ‘senior’ members of our community and you might see a row of red books adorning their shelves and although the dates 1971–1984 suggest that they are of historical interest only, they were a major catalyst for the founding of JAAS. ARAAS reviewed the previous 12 months publications in the field and was put together by its contributors, page-by-page, during an intense meeting that lasted just over 2 days. They seemed much longer because the late night sessions often ended with ‘refreshments’ and endless games of snooker. The principal problem for ARAAS was that the gestation for a book is quite long (several months) and so the published volume was in reality reporting literature that was already 6–18 months old. At the same time, the rapidly expanding literature in atomic spectrometry was causing problems for the page budget of ‘The Analyst’. The Board of ARAAS had previously recognised that the obvious future for ARAAS was to evolve into a journal, but John's direct invitation to set this in motion was the key step. We spent those few hours on the train mapping out the new journal and how to transfer ARAAS across from the annual to the regular review cycle of the ASU reviews and that model is basically what we still have today in JAAS.

Journal publishing today operates in a different environment to 1985, then one of our major concerns was to avoid ‘damaging’ any of the existing journals, notably Spectrochimica Acta, Part B and so JAAS was launched with a fairly narrow remit that was to cover essentially applications of atomic spectrometry with the notion that we would leave the fundamental studies to SAB. The naivety of that approach was exposed as soon as the submissions started to arrive in the Editorial office because it was clear that the community saw the journal as relevant to all aspects of the field. Given that new journals first and foremost have to attract submissions, it would have been terminal to turn away top class papers because they did not fit our overly cautious declaration of scope.

Evolution of scope is for me one of the interesting conundrums for the journal publisher, particularly for specialist publications. The early papers for specialist publications tend to be about the basic science and technology and that may appeal to just a few hundred scientists on the world stage and maybe, if one is lucky, there will be a pipeline of major advances (thus AAS to ICP-OES to ICP-MS as core themes) that refresh and sustain the subject and bring in sufficient new workers to sustain a critical mass of researchers and journal consumers. However, what really matters is whether the basic science finds applications in other areas of science and society in general and that has certainly been the case for analytical atomic spectrometry. The problem for the original specialist journal is how to embrace such developments and to capture them to sustain the relevance of the journal and to compete in the modern game of metrics, impact factor being chief among them. A problem is that in the world of applications, and we can cite bio- and geo-sciences as examples, our techniques rarely exist in isolation and are usually used alongside many other technologies that have equal or greater impact in the final publication (e.g., molecular mass spectrometry, molecular biology, X-ray techniques etc.). Thus the scope of the journal has to evolve, but we also have to live with the fact that the highest impact publications will most likely appear in the leading journals of other science areas or maybe very high impact journals such as Nature or Science. This is an uncomfortable position, and it's further complicated by commercial pressures because when new derivative fields of work emerge, they present the opportunity for new journal releases. Launching new journals is risky, but if the choice of subject is right they offer new opportunities for capturing the new research field, marketing, attracting new contributors/subscribers and ultimately this will generate more revenue than adding pages to an existing title.

JAAS has survived these competing pressures wonderfully well and has excellent opportunities to grow its presence and impact as an analytical journal. I personally attribute the success of JAAS to the selfless dedication of numerous colleagues in the analytical atomic spectrometry community and to the RSC and its staff who have been so willing to engage with us in producing this journal. I can't imagine my career without the involvement with JAAS and any efforts that I have made have been rewarded many times over both scientifically and through the friendships and collaborations that I have enjoyed.

Barry Sharp.

References

1. G. M. Hieftje, Atomic Spectrometry Viewpoint, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 1986, 1, 3.

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Footnote

† Dedicated to the memory of Joe Caruso.

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