Work on food surveillance at the CVUA Sigmaringen Institute in Germany has recently been given a boost with a new LC-MS system
Work on food surveillance at the CVUA Sigmaringen Institute in Germany has recently been given a boost in the form of a new API 4000 LC-MS/MS system from Applied Biosystems.
Juergen Buhlert, head of the central HPLC and LC-MS/MS laboratories, explained: "Our institute works for the government of Baden-Wuerttemberg in south-west Germany, testing all foods, water and environmental samples that might have a negative impact on consumer health".
"Our first LC-MS/MS instrument bought a couple of years ago opened up so many new avenues that we needed another to cope with the resulting workload.
"We were looking for an instrument that was highly sensitive and very robust and we were impressed by the innovative ideas that come from Applied Biosystems.
"These include, among other things, the new source design of the API 4000 system, which allows us to easily change between ESI and APCI modes in under two minutes without any tools".
"Using the API 4000 system, we can investigate polar substances much more easily without the need for long clean-up procedures and complex derivatisation steps. "In addition, before we had the API 4000 system, there was no reliable way of monitoring acrylamide levels in drinking water.
"Now, we simply inject the acidified water sample and can quantify the levels acrylamide at concentrations as low as 0.01 micrograms/l.
This is because the high vaporisation capacity of the ion source gives very good sensitivity, even at higher LC flows in ESI mode".
Buhlert concluded: "The customer support from Applied Biosystems has been excellent.
"When you start using an unfamiliar technique and new instrument, it is essential to have the care of technical consultants and experts - and we had it."
