Per- and Polyfluoroalkylsubstances (PFAS) are extremely persistent in the environment and can cause serious health problems if you are exposed to them even at low levels. Their production and use have resulted in severe contamination of soil, water and food. To protect public health, advisory and regulatory limits continue to be created and updated. Consequently, routine PFAS analysis has become challenging as not only low detection limits are required, but extensive compound coverage is a prerequisite nowadays. The list of PFAS covers both the regulated set of 20 PFAS compounds in the updated European Union Drinking Water Directive 2020/2184, and the 47 PFAS required to be monitored by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI).
This simple, direct injection method for PFAS analysis utilizes our highly sensitive mass spectrometer to reach necessary performance criteria. The enhanced negative ion sensitivity of the XevoTM TQ Absolute Tandem Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer enables PFAS analysis with a reduced sample injection volume of 50 µL without compromise to method performance. Performance has been shown in a variety of water matrices covering drinking water and environmental water. Method detection limits of 48 compounds were determined to range from 0.1-3.1 ng/L.