WWEM - Abstract

Abstract Information :

Introduction: Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) products have been in use for more than 60 years. They get into the environment during their manufacturing process and further also during their use and disposal. Research has revealed the high toxicity of PFAS compounds and thus the resulting need to regulate these substances. Various European and American methods are available for the analysis of PFAS in various kind of matrices. Analyzing these PFAS compounds is challenging and dedicated lab equipment helps to avoid blind values and standardizes the processes in sample preparation. Materials and Methods: The full workflow of PFAS sample preparation will be presented. For aqueous matrices automated SPE (Freestyle TableTop / XANA) was used for extraction / enrichment. For solid matrices shaking/PLE extractions were done. For the enrichment and/or purification of PFAS compounds solid phase extraction (SPE) a single cartridge solution was used (instead of dual clean-up). For the critical evaporation step a vaccum centrifuge with cold trap named D-EVA was used. The samples were subsequently analysed by LC-MS/MS. Results: The used blind value free robotic FREESTYLE system in combination with the newly developed SPE cartridges shows excellent reproducibility, high recoveries and low standard deviations. The vaccum centrifuge evaporation technique prevent the contamination during evaporation step. Further, the right evaporation method ensures no loss of volatile and long chain PFAS in the final sample preparation step. Discussion and Conclusion: The presented workflow shows a streamlined sample preparation process with automated sample preparation for PFAS analysis, which can be used for different kinds of PFAS including neutral sulfonamides and long chain analytes in drinking water and solid matrices. Further, SPE cartridges with a superior performance for enrichment and clean-up of PFAS from drinking water and solid matrices were developed.