NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Agilent Technologies today said that a lab of the US Environmental Protection Agency will use the firm's time-of-flight mass spectrometer to detect and identify known and unknown perfluorinated compounds in the environment.
The firm said that the National Exposure Research Laboratory of EPA will use the mass spec system under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between the agency and Agilent. The collaboration will focus on identifying perfluorooctanesulfonic acid and perfluorooctanoic acid isomers and related compounds while characterizing their environmental distributions and the potential pathways for human exposure. Both PFOS and PFOA are used in a variety of commercial products, Agilent noted.
The partners will use Agilent's 6220 Accurate Mass TOF and its MassHunter software to identify compounds in the part-per-trillion range. Agilent will supply the instrumentation, software, and support, while the NERL scientists will design the studies, obtain samples, conduct analyses, and quality check the process.
Mike McMullen, VP and GM of Agilent's chemical analysis solutions business, said that environmental applications are "perfect" for the level of accuracy and sensitivity provided by the 6220 system.