Published: 12/21/2017

This fall, Smithers’ U.S.-based chemistry lab is expanding its existing capabilities with more square footage and an investment in new, state-of-the-art instrumentation for high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS).

“Smithers is committed to offering the very best for our clients,” said Jim Popio, Vice President for North America Operations, Smithers. “This new investment keeps us at the forefront of chemical technology developments, meaning our clients can continue to count on accurate, reliable results from our lab.”

Chromatographic techniques provide solutions and support for production challenges, failure diagnosis, research and development, and regulatory or legislation-driven testing. The new instrumentation at Smithers will expand our current capacity to handle a broad range of material and sample types and chemical substances from all industry sectors.

Smithers also welcomed Dr. Dustin Jenkins, its new senior analytical chemist, in June. In addition to expanding the lab’s existing analytical instrument capabilities, Dr. Jenkins will focus on developing and validating new testing methodologies and enhancing Smithers' material benchmarking and characterization capabilities involving various chromatography and spectrometry techniques serving rubber and polymer product manufacturers.

“Dustin is extremely skilled at translating testing requirements into a study that will provide the data and analysis needed to make critical product development decisions,” said Popio. “He brings a lot of wet lab experience to the table, including chromatography and sample preparation, so he’ll make a fantastic addition to the already impressive staff at our analytical chemistry lab.”

 Dr. Dustin Jenkins joins the chemistry team with over 10 years of experience in organic and inorganic chemistry in academia and research with technical expertise in GC-MS, FT-IR, polarimetry, time-resolved laser spectroscopy, electrochemistry and NMR spectroscopy.

Both the upgraded instrumentation and the new hire are part of the overall strategy at Smithers, which is focused on constantly increasing overall capacity, capabilities, and expertise in analytical chemistry to support the tire, automotive, rubber and polymer product, medical device, and pharmaceutical packaging industries.