News from LabRulezICPMS Library - Week 4, 2025
LabRulez: News from LabRulezICPMS Library - Week 4, 2025
Our Library never stops expanding. What are the most recent contributions to LabRulezICPMS Library in the week of 20th January 2025? Check out new documents from the field of spectroscopy/spectrometry and related techniques!
👉 SEARCH THE LARGEST REPOSITORY OF DOCUMENTS ABOUT SPECTROSCOPY/SPECTROMETRY RELATED TECHNIQUES
👉 Need info about different analytical techniques? Peek into LabRulezLCMS or LabRulezGCMS libraries.
This week we bring you applications by Shimadzu, Agilent Technologies and Thermo Fisher Scientific!
1. Shimadzu: TOC Analysis for Evaluation of Plastics and Other Organic Materials in Contact with Drinking Water
- Application note
- Full PDF for download
User Benefits
- TOC analysis helps ensure compliance with EU regulations for materials in contact with drinking water, protecting public health and maintaining high water quality standards.
- TOC-L supports a comprehensive analysis capable of testing a wide range of components, thus helping to obtain conformity certification for the hygienic suitability of products in contact with drinking water.
Introduction
Ensuring the purity of drinking water during production and distribution is a critical requirement. Quality standards are defined by the European Union in the Drinking Water Directive (EU) 2020/2184, where Article 11 specifically addresses materials that come into contact with water (Table 1) . These materials must not adversely affect human health, alter the taste, color or odor of the water, contribute to microbial growth or release significant quantities of contaminants. In essence, no extractable substances from these materials should contaminate drinking water. Therefore, the technical and hygienic suitability of products in contact with drinking water must be verified by laboratory tests.
Article 11 (EU) of 2020/2184 is essentially based on the "4 Member States Initiative" (4MSI) common approach for organic materials. One guideline that has dealt with this topic to date is the KTW guideline (German for Plastics - Drinking Water) from the German Federal Environment Agency. It was used for the hygienic assessment of organic materials in contact with
drinking water and describes the requirements that plastics must meet in this context. As guidelines tend to be of a recommendatory nature, the EU has obliged its member states to specifically regulate the requirements for materials in contact with drinking water. Accordingly, the Federal Environment Agency published the KTW-BWGL (Plastics Drinking Water Assessment Guideline) in March 2019. It officially replaced the previous recommendations of the KTW guideline.
2. Agilent Technologies: Agilent 8800 ICP-QQQ Upgrades
Upgrading your 8800 to an Agilent 8900 provides a seamless transition, as the new instrument can replace your existing 8800 with minimal disruption to your lab’s operations:
- Existing laboratory services – power, exhaust vent, and gas supplies – will still be suitable
- Major peripherals such as the ASX and SPS 4 autosamplers and water chiller/recirculator can still be used
- Many consumables (torches, sampling cones, tubing) are compatible
- Upgrading also gives you access to the latest in ICP-QQQ technology as well as the upgraded UHMI High Matrix Introduction system1.
Upgrading your Agilent 8800 ICP-QQQ
For a limited time, Agilent is offering 8800 Series ICP-QQQ users the opportunity to upgrade their ICP-QQQ instrumentation to the latest, high-performance, Agilent triple quadrupole ICP-QQQ. The Agilent 8900 is the ideal replacement for your 8800, as it provides continuity of analytical capability but with even better performance. The 8900 is also compatible with your existing bench space and lab services.
With the 8900, there is no need to compromise the unmatched matrix tolerance, helium, and unparalleled reaction cell mode performance and wide detector dynamic range that made the 8800 such a remarkable success.
3. Thermo Fisher Scientific: A comprehensive workflow for beverage analysis using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS)
- Application note
- Full PDF for download
This application note will highlight a complete and comprehensive workflow for the analysis of nutrients and toxic trace elements in different types of beverages. Samples were digested using a microwave system prior to analysis using triple quadrupole ICP-MS for analysis.
Introduction
Trace metals analysis in beverages plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety, quality, and compliance of these products, helping to protect consumer health and maintain the reputation of beverage manufacturers.
Trace metals can enter beverages through various sources, starting from their natural occurrence in the ingredients, water used in production, or through processing equipment, packaging materials, etc. The presence of these metals in excessive amounts can pose potential health risks to consumers, making it necessary to monitor and control their levels. Typical analytes include, but are not limited to, arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, and copper. The analysis is essential to ensure the safety and quality of beverages consumed by humans.
Regulatory bodies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have established guidelines and maximum allowable limits for trace metals in beverages to ensure consumer safety. Manufacturers and regulatory authorities rely on the analysis to verify compliance with these regulations and to maintain the quality and integrity of beverages in the market.
It is important to note that concentration limits can vary depending on the specific beverage type and the intended consumer population (e.g., infants, children, adults). Furthermore, applicable regulations and guidelines are regularly updated, so it is crucial for beverage manufacturers to stay informed about the latest requirements in their respective markets to ensure compliance.
On the other hand, there are several essential inorganic elements that are vital for various physiological processes in the body. Nutrients such as calcium, phosphorous, sodium, potassium, magnesium, iron, and zinc serve essential roles in various physiological processes within the human body and provide the building blocks for growth, development, and maintenance of tissues and organs. These elements therefore play crucial roles in maintaining overall health and supporting various bodily functions.
This application note demonstrates a workflow for highly reproducible sample preparation combined with sensitive and robust analysis for a wide variety of beverages. The proposed workflow allowed accurate determination of both essential nutrients and potentially toxic trace metals without any compromise and can be implemented, for example, in analytical testing laboratories performing the analysis on behalf of manufacturers or regulatory authorities.
Conclusion
This workflow, combining sample preparation using microwave assisted digestion and analysis using the iCAP MTX ICP-MS, allows the determination of nutrient composition of fruit juices and processed beverages as required by the food labeling regulations and detection of any contaminants such as toxic elements present in the beverages.
The analytical method was proven to provide accurate and precise results and can provide reliable performance over long analysis sequences, ensuring productivity in an applied testing laboratory. Based on the automatic and constant 5-times dilution of all samples, there are no matrix effects that would lead to unwanted interruptions of the analysis due to QC failures. Samples can be placed on the autosampler after completing preparation; no additional dilution is required. All types of interferences (polyatomic as well as isobaric interference, including doubly charged ions) are effectively suppressed with either helium collision gas or by using oxygen as a reactive gas in triple quadrupole mode. The instrument method could be easily set up thanks to the Reaction Finder method development assistant for Qtegra ISDS Software.
