SETAC North America

 New advancements in preparing solid and semi solid samples for POPs analysis

November 14, 2022 | 12:45 - 1:45 p.m. EST
Speakers: Matthew MacLennan, Pacific Rim Labs and Chris Shevlin, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Accelerated solvent extraction is a high-temperature and high-pressure extraction technique that is widely used in environmental, chemical and food analysis. Extractions at high temperatures and pressures allow faster extraction of analytes relative to conventional solid-liquid or liquid-liquid based extraction techniques.

However, advancements in this technology have been stagnant and instrumentation has seen few changes in the years since it was released. Discover a truly new technology which pushed accelerated solvent extraction to the next level. For the first time, a true walkaway, sample-to-vial system is available which brings tremendous improvements to processing solid and semi-solid samples for POPs analysis which makes the lab more productive and reduces costs.

Parallel extraction offers the advantage of faster operation. Gas assisted extraction is a method of extracting an analyte from a sample that uses a mixture of a liquid solvent and a gas through the sample container. Gas assisted extraction allows the extraction to proceed at low flow of solvent continuously.

In this presentation, we discuss a new parallel extraction protocol for pursuing extractions in gas assisted extraction mode followed by quantitation for persistent organic pollutants (POP). We present here performance data of the new method for analyte extraction and evaporation in the same platform from soil samples for different POP. Unlike traditional methods such as liquid-solvent extraction followed by N2 stream evaporation, the fully automated solvent extraction and evaporation system saves time, solvent, and labor, while ensuring high reproducibility and productivity for analytical testing.

 Sample preparation solutions for PFAS analysis in environmental samples

November 16, 2022 | 12:45 - 1:45 p.m. EST
Speakers: Ed George, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Chris Shevlin, Thermo Fisher Scientific

From sample collection to result, methods requiring targeted quantitation of PFAS at low ng/L levels of detection can be challenging due to potential contamination during manual sample preparation steps. We will demonstrate how a laboratory can benefit from either on-line or off-line automated sample preparation solutions that will greatly reduce potential for contamination, errors, cost, and allow overall higher productivity.

In addition to targeted PFAS methods, there has been growing interest in non-target screening to estimate the concentration of adsorbable organic fluorine (AOF) in samples, which is a measure of PFAS and non-PFAS fluorinated compounds such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals that can be retained on granular activated carbon (GAC). The result is reported as the concentration of fluoride (F- ) in the sample.

Thermo Fisher Scientific offers a complete CIC solution that provides an easy-to-use extraction and analysis method that is an economically attractive way to generate a cumulative F- parameter, and ultimately helps labs optimize the utilization of more expensive LC-MS/MS and GC-MS/MS instrumentation by selecting and only analyzing “suspicious” or “hot” samples.