SinS - Abstract

Abstract Information :

Gas Chromatography-Vacuum Ultraviolet spectroscopy (GC-VUV) uses the power of high-resolution GC separations with the enhanced analytical scope and selectivity of the non-destructive VUV detector. VUV offers significant potential for reliable qualitative and quantitative analysis across a broad range of applications since almost all chemical species strongly absorb at VUV wavelengths due to the excitation of a broad range of high energy electronic transitions. With nearly all molecules having a unique electronic structure (and absorption cross-section), this can provide a highly specific spectral ‘fingerprint’, enabling the identification of analytes through comparison with reference spectra. By interfacing advanced bead milling homogenization and multi-modal Optic-4 sample introduction systems to release ‘hidden’ chemicals across material types, and the applicability of GC-VUV to a broader range of volatile and semi-volatile chemistries, Swansea’s installation uniquely offers enhanced analytical monitoring for substances routinely measured using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Furthermore, with the transfer of the system to a highly sustainable nitrogen gas system this installation provides a ‘greener’ approach to the analysis of volatile chemistries for the development of improved technologies, processes, products, and policies that bridge the life science, health, manufacturing, and environmental sectors. This session will introduce the technologies interfaced in this system, along with some lesson’s learned with a move to a ‘Green Analytical Chemistry’ approach at relatively low cost. It will also highlight work undertaken on a novel research application, showing proof of concept data on microplastics analysis for environmental monitoring.