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The cannabis industry is currently one of the fastest growing industries. This growth is fueled by recent revelations in the potential benefits of cannabinoid therapies for various medical conditions. Although systems for growing production and sale of cannabis related products are well established, regulation and enforcement of quality and safety testing have lagged, such as the testing of heavy metals.

Elemental analysis of heavy crude oil is important for a variety of reasons including region of origin, maturity, migration, type, and identification of potential challenges that could arise during the refining process. There are numerous challenges with analysis of heavy crude oil with most being centered on the sample prep process due to the complexity of the sample matric. Microwave digestion has been used to overcome these challenges.

Several governments require their analysis in environmental samples. Microwave assisted solvent extraction is a well-established sample preparation technique applied in several official methods.

Recently published on Spectroscopy, this column describes the work of Professor Luis Fernandez and his team in the Department of Biology at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina, who are leading a project to study the effects of illegal artisanal gold mining using mercury amalgamation extraction on the human and environmental ecosystem of Peru’s Madre de Dios region of the Amazon.