Agilent has announced that it has entered into a cooperative research-and-development agreement (CRADA) with the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL).
The EPA plans to use the Agilent time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS) to detect and identify both known and unknown perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in the environment.
The study of perfluorinated organic compounds in the environment has increased recently as a result of continued studies that indicate their distribution, persistence and toxicity in the environment and biological systems.
The collaborative efforts between the NERL and Agilent will focus on identifying perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which are both used in commercial products, isomers and related compounds, while characterising their environmental distributions and the potential pathways for human exposure.
The Agilent 6220 accurate-mass TOF used in this CRADA will help the EPA's NERL to detect and identify compounds in the part-per-trillion range.
This capability, along with Agilent Masshunter software, is said to be suitable for detecting and identifying very small amounts of unknown compounds.
