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Working in an environmental lab requires a lot of concentration, both mentally and for the samples that you are working with. When New England finally begins to thaw and local companies rush to get th...
“Why do I keep seeing background contamination from phthalate and adipate when I do extractions for semi-volatiles?” This is one of the most common questions I’ve been asked when I’m traveling in the ...
“Our laboratory uses organic solvents every day. Should we be concerned about solvent exposure?” I hear this question fairly often and the short and simple answer is: YES. But if this were a simple ye...
If you’re reading this and raising your eyebrows, you’ve never had, what I like to call, the “grade discussion.” I don’t mean the discussion between high school or college students who are comparing g...
If you are processing environmental samples then you’ve probably dealt with contamination at some point. If you haven’t, then you should be congratulated for creating the only laboratory on Earth that...
Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE), supported liquid extraction (SLE), and solid-phase extraction (SPE) have existed for decades and if you’re doing organic sample preparation, you’re probably quite famil...
Believe it or not, we’re all familiar with emulsions. Have you ever added food oil to a pot of water while cooking? That’s an emulsion. Do you put dressing on your salad?
Have you ever wondered why solution flow rates are so important when performing sample preparation with solid phase extraction (SPE)? If you have, read on – I have the answer for you!
Have you ever had days of extracting oil and grease samples and thought to yourself “there must be an easier way to work with wastewater samples”? Whether you run oil and grease samples by liquid-liqu...
In the world of environmental testing, many labs encounter extremely dirty samples.