Some Further Reading for DiLLME on Tour

Martin Perkins

3rd September 2019

Biphenyls, DiLLME, Dispersive Liquid-Liquid Microextraction, DLLME, Ecosystems, Environmental, Food, Organic, Organochlorine, Pesticides, Pollutants, Polychlorinated, Thames Water, Tour, Water,


As part of our DiLLME tour, we’ve been busy using the technique to extract and analyse a range of water matrices for a suite of 18 chlorinated compounds from just 6 mL of sample.

As a result, Senior Applications Chemist, Jonathan Dunscombe, has written another application note around work he’s been doing with Thames Water on Pesticides. See the abstract below by the man himself to give you an idea of what to expect:

Abstract

Monitoring the levels of persistent organic pollutants is hugely important within the water industry. It is vital in helping to ensure that water provided is safe for their customers to drink. Organochlorine pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls are compounds that can persist for many years and cause problems when part of food chains and ecosystems.

Traditional, more well-established methodologies for testing water for organochlorine pesticides require large volumes of sample and solvents. Not to mention many hours of analyst’s time to prepare them. These procedures no doubt still have a part to play in the future of testing water. However, they are increasingly being rejected in favour of more cost effective and justifiable techniques.

Challenges

Water companies are increasingly finding themselves coming under pressure from all angles. Drinking Water Inspectors want robust, repeatable data for ever increasing numbers of compounds. The Environment Agency needs contaminated water to be identified quickly to avoid it going back into drinking sources. OFWAT need prices to remain fair and affordable for the end consumer.

In most markets, if the cost of producing goods goes up, you have the lever of raising prices. This is not true in this industry. Therefore savvy labs need to find efficiencies in other ways. For example, reducing unnecessary wastage, shorter preparation times, reducing costs associated with chemical and consumable usage and increase workflow throughput.

In this application note, Dispersive Liquid-Liquid MicroExtraction was used to extract and analyse a range of water matrices for a suite of 18 chlorinated compounds from just 6 mL of sample. Using a 10 ยตL large volume injection and Agilent’s 7010 QQQ, limits of quantification far below 10 ng/L were achievable.

This PDF contains four application additional notes on the DiLLME for testing water technique.

You can also email us or simply call the office on +44 (0)1223 279210.