Thermo Electron's GC/MS Capabilities Aid Compliance To EU Regulations

Austin, TX — Thermo Electron Corporation announces the development of two new GC/MS applications for the determination of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) in environmental and electronic/electrical samples using its DSQ® mass spectrometer. The new applications are: "Quadrupole GC/MS Analysis of PBDEs in Environmental Samples" and "Fast, Sensitive and Reliable Analysis of PBDEs by GC/MS." Both application notes demonstrate how the DSQ helps environmental laboratories and regulatory agencies, as well as manufacturers and importers of electrical and electronic equipment, comply with the strict EU regulations relating to Restrictions of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE).

The RoHS/WEEE regulations aim at minimizing the presence of PBDEs in various types of electrical and electronic components such as power cables, insulation wires, connectors and sockets. Thermo's new applications feature effective methods for detecting and identifying specific PBDE congeners in small amounts.

The first application demonstrates the DSQ's ability to scan up to 1,050 amu to allow molecular spectra to be obtained for every PBDE congener. In the second application, a narrow bore GC column is combined with the fast scan rate of the DSQ achieving the analysis of 21 PBDE congeners in less than 11 minutes. Without repeating the sample injection, the simultaneous acquisition of full scan and SIM data from the same chromatographic run has been used for analyte confirmation in the environmental and electronic samples, while retaining the sensitivity and selectivity of the target compound analysis by SIM.

SOURCE: Thermo Fisher Scientific