Sample treatment is, without any doubt, the backbone of chemical analysis. Always underestimated, many times neglected, sample treatment needs to be recalled from the limbo in which it has been thrown during the last decades. With this aim the Caparica Christmas Conference on sample treatment has been created.

The idea is to join all of us working with sample treatment in a 3 day conference, in a nice place (Caparica) during one of the most beautiful periods of the year: December.

As for the obvious question you already have in mind, but what is sample treatment? the following answer is proposed: any tool that helps to interrogate any measurable matter. Thus, ultrasonic energy or microwave energy can be used to extract analytes from solid substances; the use of such energy can be considered sample treatment. However, to interrogate the analytes we need analytical devices, such as atomic absorption spectrometry, RMN or mass spectrometry. The correct application of such devices or the development of new ones is also sample treatment. But there is more to tell. Many times a large number of samples need to be interrogated. Data compiled after extracting analytes and after analyzing them is nothing if we do not use chemometrics to understand all the information we have retrieved. This is also sample treatment.

The organizing and scientific committee is proud to welcome you to the 6th Caparica Christmas Conference on Sample Treatment.

Yours truly

C. Lodeiro

 J. L. Capelo
Conference chairs
On behalf of the organizing and scientific committee

• Analytical Chemistry
• Sample treatment for inorganic and elemental analysis
• Sample treatment for the analysis of organic molecules
• Sample treatment for physical-chemistry analysis
• Sample treatment for biomedical analysis
• Automatic methods (FIA-SIA)
• Chemometrics
• Informatics
• New tools for sample treatment and analysis
• X-ray analysis (XRF, PIXE, XRD, SEM-EDX)
• Confocal X-ray microscopy (3D µ-XRF, 3D µ-PIXE)
• Synchrotron, ion beam and neutron-based techniques/instrumentation
• FT-IR and Raman spectroscopy and microscopy
• UV-Vis and NIR absorption/reflectance and fluorescence
• Laser-based analytical methods (LIBS etc.)
• Magnetic resonance techniques
• Chromatography (GC, HPLC) and mass spectrometry
• Optical and coherent imaging techniques
• Mobile spectrometry and spectroscopy
• Remote sensing and hyperspectral imaging
• Case studies employing one or more analytical methods