With ever increasing numbers of compounds and classes screened for and quantitated in environmental samples, the need for sensitive and efficient analytical instruments and methods continues to rise. In this seminar, hosted by Thermo Fisher Scientific at SETAC Europe, learn from experts about their approaches to evaluating some of the most challenging environmental compounds.
In the first part of our lecture Dr. Massimo Peruzzo of Eurolab demonstrates the use of LC-HR-MS/MS (Orbitrap Q-Exactive Focus) to overcome these challenges and eliminating the pre-concentration steps and using HRAM to enhance accuracy.
In the second part of the webinar, Dr. Davide Mariani, Head of Detergents and Surfactants at Innovhub-SSI, reviews automated surfactant extraction for analysis and quantitation. The extraction process covers matrices including textiles, polymers, and metal surfaces. Both the extraction challenges, as well as the anticipated analytical results, are explored. In addition to surfactants, recently, the analysis of Poly Fluorinated Compounds (PFC) has created multiple challenges for labs. Normally, the determination of PFC's is performed using sample pre-concentration via SPE followed by LC-MS/MS triple quad analysis. This approach is amenable to drinking or clean water samples. However, when analyzing waste water samples or sludge samples that contain solvents or high organic concentrations, SPE cartridges have difficulty retaining PFAS consisting of short chains (like PFBA and PFBS). Furthermore, in dirty samples, the low resolution of triple quad technique can result in false positives.