When working with regulated environmental methods have you ever asked yourself why are all these extracts concentrated down to one milliliter (mL) final volume? This is true for most soil and aqueous methods. Of course, a few methods will require a more diluted final volume but not many.
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“I love doing maintenance. It’s the best part of my week” – said nobody ever. Let’s be honest. We all dread performing maintenance. Why? It’s boring. I’m a chemist and I’d rather spend my time using my instrument than maintaining it. It seems unnecessary. I’m a fan of what I call “sensory maintenance” – that water looks pretty clean, that pump sounds pretty good.
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“Water in my extracts again?!?!” How many of you have been in that position? You’ve worked hard to extract your samples, you’ve dried your extracts to remove the last droplets of water from your organic solvent – only to add that water back in during your evaporation step! There are fewer frustrating situations than losing a set of extracts in this manner.
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It is that time of year again when laboratories are fulfilling accreditation requirements for the methods that they offer. One of the requirements that must be met for each method is called proficiency testing (PT).
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Solid phase extraction is a powerful technique – it can be used to clean up the most challenging samples, and extract and preconcentrate hundreds of semivolatile organic compounds.
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Every step within a solid phase extraction (SPE) procedure is imperative, but one of the most important steps that must be done properly is the air-dry step.
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