Anyone familiar with EPH methods such as those developed by the Massachusetts or New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is familiar with the long and grueling process of fractionation.

Anyone familiar with Extractable Petroleum Hydrocarbons (EPH) methods such as those developed by Massachusetts DEP, New Jersey DEP, or one of the other various state agencies that regulate EPHs is familiar with the long and grueling process of fractionation.

Welcome to part 4 of our blog series “The Problem of PFAS”. If you are just tuning in, you might want to take a look at the previous blogs of this series as we provided background on the PFAS controversy (Part 1), a review of the regulatory guidelines for  monitoring PFAS contamination in the environment (Part 2), and most recently, a look at which analytical method might work the best for your lab (Part 3). If you are up to speed on this series, you should now have a good baseline on what we’ll be discussing today.

Testing for toxic organic contaminants in environmental samples often requires the following three sample preparation steps: 1) Extraction, 2) Concentration, and 3) Analysis. The goal during these three steps is to isolate the contaminants from the sample matrix and concentrate them so they can be detected and quantified. In this blog, I will discuss the importance of understanding how different types of concentration equipment can impact your analyte recoveries and the overall performance of your extraction procedure.

Welcome to part 3 of our blog series “The Problem of PFAS”. If you are just tuning in, you might want to take a look at the previous blogs of this series as we provided background on the PFAS controversy (Part 1) as well as a review of the regulatory guidelines for monitoring PFAS contamination in the environment (Part 2).  If you are up to speed on this series, you are now ready to dive deeper into the specific methods for monitoring PFAS in the environment.

When juggling the responsibilities of working in a sample preparation lab as well as working as an analyst, it is very easy to get caught up in a never-ending cycle of samples. There is no situation “more frustrating” then when you have a bunch of wastewater samples that need to be extracted and analyzed ASAP and there is that one sample that is so much more challenging to extract than the others.

Working in an environmental lab requires a lot of concentration, both mentally and for the samples that you are working with. When New England finally begins to thaw and local companies rush to get their samples completed, a bottleneck that is usually experienced is the drying and concentration of so many samples.

When working in a contract lab or any analytical testing lab, you may be prone to periods where it seems like there is never going to be a light at the end of the tunnel, as the samples just keep on coming in.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of harmful organic compounds that are very persistent in structure. What this means is PFAS compounds accumulate in the environment over time as they do not break down easily. This makes it a concern to regulate and test these compounds as they have been shown to have adverse effects. One of the most common ways that someone would come in contact with PFAS is through drinking water.