Lessons Learned from a PFAS-Stress Test of LCMS InstrumentsOperational Issues Impacting the Environmental Laboratory Industry (Session 2)
Oral Presentation
Presented by R. Marfil-Vega
Prepared by W. Hedgepeth1, T. Ogura1, C. Gilles2
1 - Shimadzu Scientific Instruments, 7102 Riverwood Drive, Columbia, MD, 21046, United States
2 - Shimadzu Scientific Instruments, 7102 Riverwood Drive, Columbia, Maryland, 21046, United States
Contact Information: [email protected]; 410-910-0884
ABSTRACT
Whether you are currently performing PFAS analysis in-house or by a contract laboratory, you probably do not have time to challenge your instrument, thoroughly evaluate its response under unusual conditions, and determine how these situations will impact the quality of your analytical results. However, instrument manufacturers have the capability of stress-testing LCMS instruments and develop recommendations for the scientific community on how to anticipate potential sources of contamination and analytical errors.
At NEMC 2021 we presented the results from our initial systematic evaluation of PFAS sources in the laboratory, with focus on the essential hardware modifications, and discussed qualitative results from testing several types of tubing (PEEK, LLDPE, FEP). This year, we continued the work to evaluate the performance of different consumables employed in PFAS analytical workflows and, more importantly, we conducted a series of stress test to determine the response from the hardware when PFAS was introduced into the system at various steps of the analysis (e.g., PFAS spike in solvent bottles). In this presentation we will provide the outcomes and lessons learned from our latest set of experiments.
