It is estimated that only 6% of the 10,000 PFAS identified by government agencies have a commercially available reference standard. Why? Because producing high-purity PFAS certified reference materials (CRMs) is anything but simple. With only a handful of vendors offering PFAS CRMs, the challenges of sourcing, synthesizing, and purifying these complex compounds are significant. Restek Corporation set out to tackle this head-on—committed to becoming one of the industry’s trusted sources of PFAS CRMs. In this presentation, we pull back the curtain to reveal what it really takes to bring these essential standards to the lab bench.

Some of the most commonly encountered problems experienced by those analyzing environmental samples for organochlorine pesticides are instrument downtime and shortened calibration periods, both due to the deleterious effects of coextracted matrix components that are introduced into the analytical instrument during sample injection. In addition to this, chromatographic interferences complicating identification and quantification have also made life difficult for environmental analysts.

Ensuring quality data is dependent upon maintaining the analytical instrument in operable order so that accurate data may be collected without the effects of an active induction system and difficulties arising from chromatographic interferences; effective extract cleanup procedures must be implemented. Although there are cleanup options provided, such as Florisil, silica gel, and alumina, these normal phase solutions often do not adequately remove the less polar and high molecular weight compounds that are responsible for diminishing instrumental performance and sample path inertness.

In this presentation, a cartridge is introduced that is designed specifically to be utilized exactly like the frequently employed Florisil cartridge but to a much superior effect for highly pigmented and inlet degrading samples. What this means for the analyst is the ability to maintain instrument reliability, ultimately leading to higher-quality data.