Instruments and Equipment

The OAL has a full range of analytical capabilities for identifying and quantifying trace organic contaminants in environmental matrices. The organic laboratory operations, quality assurance, data management, and validation are integrated into an interactive process that occurs through the field measurement and analytical programs.

OAL’s major analytical equipment includes:

• PerkinElmer Clarus 680 GC with Clarus SQ8 MS and customized TurboMatrix 650 ATD (for both sorbent tubes and canisters sampling); PerkinElmer TurboMass and TotalChrom software packages and the latest version of NIST MS Library software.
• Bruker 456 Gas Chromatograph with SCION Triple Quadrupole (TQ) Mass Spectrometer (GC/MS/MS) with positive ion electron impact (EI) and positive and negative ion and chemical ionization (CI) modes, Bruker 8400 autosampler, solvent programmable temperature injector.  Bruker Workstation and NIST MS Library software.
• Waters Acquity I-class ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with electrospray ionization (ESI) triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer (MS/MS) (Waters Xebo TQ-S MS).
• Agilent 1260 Binary High-performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) coupled with Quadrupole Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer (Agilent 6545 QTOF MS).
• Two Waters Arc HPLC equipped with Waters 2998 Photodiode Array Detector.
• Waters UPLC coupled with electrospray ionization (ESI), atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) MS/MS, and Evaporative Light Scattering Detector (Waters Acquity UPLC/Quattro micro API/ELSD).
• Shimadzu Prominence HPLC coupled with a triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer (AB Sciex API 3200 LC-MS/MS), equipped with electrospray ionization (ESI) and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) sources.
• Varian Saturn 4000 Ion Trap GC/MS system, with EI/CI capabilities; Full, AMD, MS/MS, SIS, uSIS Scan Types; CP-8400 autosampler, Saturn Workstation and NIST MS Library software.
• Varian Saturn 2000 Ion Trap MS system coupled to Varian CP-3800 GC, with MS/MS and EI/CI capabilities with Lotus Ultra-Trace Toxics whole air preconcentration system for automated sample delivery from up to 15 canisters. Varian Workstation and NIST MS Library software.
• Varian Saturn 4000 Ion Trap MS system coupled to Varian CP-3800 GC-FID, with MS/MS and EI/CI capabilities equipped with Gerstel Thermal Desorption System (TDS). Varian Workstation, Gerstel Maestro, and NIST MS Library software.
• Waters high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) equipped with Waters 2695 Alliance separation module, Waters 996 Photodiode Array Detector and Empower chromatography software.
• Shimadzu GC-FID configured for analysis of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane in canister samples of ambient air and diluted source samples.  Varian Galaxie software.
• Two Metrohm 761 Compact Ion Chromatographs (IC), one with a conductivity suppressor
• Total organic carbon – total nitrogen (TOC-TN) analyzer (Shimadzu TOC-Vcsh – TN)
• Dionex ASE 300 Accelerated Solvent Extractor automated systems for extracting organic compounds from solid or semi-solid samples by using solvent at elevated temperatures and pressure
• Solid Phase Mico-Extraction equipment for sampling volatile organic compounds
• CPI Accu-Prep Solid Phase Extraction manifold for extraction of nonpolar organic compounds in water
• Supelco semi-preparative Solid Phase Extraction manifold
• Two Buchi Rotavapor solvent evaporation units
• Pierce Reacti-vap heated nitrogen blow-down apparatus

Other equipment for air quality studies:

• Potential Aerosol Mass (PAM) Oxidation Flow Reactor (Aerodyne Research, Inc.).
• Two scanning mobility particle sizers (SMPS, TSI Inc.)
• A thermodenuder
• Two-channel high-volume and middle-volume samplers
• SRI 8610C portable GC-FID/PID.  Peaksimple software.
• 300+ evacuated canisters in sizes ranging from 500 ml to 6 l
• Canister dilution system for performing quantitative dilutions
• Canister cleaning oven