Thermo Scientific™ TRACE™ 1300 Series GC System

This application note describes a method for determination of total petroleum hydrocarbons in rubble and soil using accelerated solvent extraction. This technique reduces the time and solvent required for extraction of organic contaminants from solid samples compared to more traditional methods.

This application note reports on in-house validation results and assessment of performance parameters of a complete multi-residue pesticide analysis method employing QuEChERS sample preparation kits, sample measurement by the newly developed Thermo Scientific™ TSQ™ 8000 Pesticide Analyzer system and rapid data analysis by Thermo Scientific™ TraceFinder™ software.

In this application a programmable temperature injector (PTV) was used with additional surge pressure for an accelerated sample vapor transfer to the analytical column. The analysis of toxaphenes is very challenging, not limited to the almost impossible chromatographic separation of the vast amount of isomers, the injection technique as well as the ionization performance have a great influence over reproducibility, linearity and sensitivity. Toxaphenes are included in the Annex A of the Stockholm Convention to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The international community has called for urgent global actions to reduce and eliminate releases of these listed chemicals including toxaphenes.

A wide variety of phytosanitary products are commonly applied in agricultural crops in order to increase production yield and obtain high quality products. Consequently, the control of pesticide residue levels by the performance of monitoring programs is currently an increasing concern for producers, traders and consumers. The QuEChERS method is widely used but the minimal clean-up required leaves the produced sample extracts carrying a high concentration of vegetal matrix, which causes problems for GC and MS systems. This application note presents an robust analytical method for high sample throughput.

This application note describes a method to detect pesticides at very low concentrations in challenging food matrices on a routine use gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS). The target concentration was 1 pg/µL injected on-column, or 50 ppt equivalent in matrix. Pesticide analysis is an important aspect of food safety and the sheer number of analyses dictates that the methods used must be reliable, robust, and, given the competitive nature of the food industry, the cost per analysis must be low. Food is a complicated matrix for an analysis, and the chemical complexity of the food makes co-elution of matrix peaks with residues of interest inevitable. Even when using the mass spectrum of a compound of interest, there can be difficulty in determining pesticide contamination, especially at low levels.

This application note demonstrates two different ways to perform targeted and non-targeted screening of pesticides in one analytical run, by screening for 600 pesticides in selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode or a smaller subset in selected reaction monitoring/ full scan (SRM/FS) mode. The increased accessibility of high selectivity GC-MS has enabled more generic sample preparation in pesticide testing, allowing consolidation of multiple analyte lists and matrices into one method. GC-MS/MS is well suited to multi-residue analysis in a diverse range of matrices. However, as the number of targeted compounds increases, the complexity of method optimization increases and analytical performance becomes compromised.

This paper describes an alternative way to effectively and rapidly analyze Organo-Phosphorous Pesticides (OPPs) in oils eliminating any interference with the heavy fraction. OPPs are widely used in agriculture, due to their relatively low cost, broad spectrum of activity, and high impact on insects compared to other pesticides. However, because the OPPs are well known to cause irreversible effects on the nervous system (reduced activity of neurotransmitters), their possible presence as trace residues in food must be strictly monitored.

Organophosphorous pesticides have been widely used to prevent and treat plant diseases and pests in agricultural products and as a result, excessive residual pesticide content is frequently reported in drinking and surface water sources. A number of organophosphorous pesticides are acutely toxic to human and animal life, making the detection of residual organophosphorous pesticides a growing concern. This application note addresses the detection of trace amounts of organophosphorus pesticides in water and optimizes the conditions for solid-phase extraction (SPE) and chromatographic analysis using the Thermo Scientific™ Dionex™ AutoTrace 280 Solid-Phase Extraction instrument and the Thermo Scientific™ TRACE™ 1300 Series gas chromatograph with a nitrogen-phosphorus detector (NPD).

As helium continues to become more expensive, many labs are searching for more cost effective carrier gas options. This application note demonstrates the effectiveness of Teledyne Tekmars’ Atomx Automated VOC Sample Prep System’s nitrogen purge feature in conjunction with Thermo Scientifics’ TRACE 1300 series Helium Saver inlet at producing quality data while reducing helium consumption.

This application note demonstrates the combined analytical power of the Thermo Scientific TRACE 1310 GC and the Thermo Scientific TriPlus 300 Headspace Autosampler to detect and quantify solvents that may leach from adhesives in flexible plastic packaging into the food products the packaging was meant to protect.

Watch this video to hear Inge De Dobbeleer, Marketing Manager GC & GC/MS EMEA, Thermo Fisher Scientific, explain how the Trace 1300 Series GC and the TSQ 8000 GC-MS/MS bring productivity and robustness to a range of environmental applications.

Read the highlights and Q&A from part three of the webinar series: Innovations in Laboratory Efficiency and Analytical Workflows

Customization and high throughput bring productivity to organic contaminant analysis