From the Stone Age to the Space Age: Dr. William Koskinen's Long Road with Analytical Development.

Bill’s career as an Environmental Chemist, someone who scientifically studies the chemical and biochemical phenomena that occur in nature, has covered the entire modern era of this science. His contributions have been numerous and substantial, especially in the application and development of analytical instrumentation required to perform these measurements. From the simplest sample preparative steps with solvents, shakers and filters, to complex robotic systems capable of extracting the compounds of interest and preparing vial-capped samples ready for analysis, Bill has been a pioneer in advancing analytical development. Borrowing technology from food preparative sciences, Bill was one of the first to use Super Critical Fluid Extraction (SFE), a technique used to extract caffeine from coffee, to extract bound and aged residues from soils. He was an early adopter of Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE), an automated technique that greatly reduces the use of hazardous solvents, promoting a greener and safer approach to the extraction technique. Using radio-isotope labeled herbicides; Bill both oversaw and personally conducted tens of thousands degradation experiments, measuring the evolved C14 on isotope scintillation counters and determining the metabolically degraded compounds with a technique known as fraction collecting. The complex and challenging work of determining the environmental fate of new herbicides and their metabolites requires the application of many combined analytical systems. In this portion of the presentation honoring Bill’s contributions to our community, I will attempt to comprehensively cover the technology and instrumentation he employed to do this research.