Improved sample preparation for environmental testing through SPE and SPME

Innovative adsorbents such as Merck’s Supelclean™ ENVI-Carb™ improve Environmental Testing. ENVI-Carb™ is a GCB (graphitised carbon black) with an unique selectivity for polar contaminants such as polar pesticides or glycols in water. As a non-porous adsorbent, it allows for fast flow rates. An improvement of ENVI-Carb is the Supelclean ENVI-Carb Plus consisting of highly stable spherical carbon particles (carbon molecular sieve) that have been developed and engineered for the solid phase extraction (SPE) of highly polar compounds from aqueous samples.

Solid Phase Microextraction (SPME) is a sample collection and preparation technology for organic contaminants in air, water and soil. It is a simple-to-use, one-step trace analysis technology that can be fully automated just using common GC autosamplers. As this extraction technology does not use any organic solvent, it is considered as a green sample prep technology. SPME is used in many official methods such as EPA and ISO for environmental testing as well as referenced in numerous publications on environmental testing.