New Evaporative Technique Improves Environmental Sample Preparation

In recent years HPLC/MS/MS and UPLC have become the sensitive and specific techniques of choice for the detection of algal toxins in water. While the majority of published studies employ SPE for preparing environmental samples for MS or UPLC analysis, using this methodology can be very time consuming.

In this paper a direct solvent evaporation methodology, using the Genevac EZ-2 evaporator, is evaluated as a means to reduce the lengthy sample preparation process prior to MS analysis and to improve efficiency.

The authors demonstrate that using the EZ-2 for their sample preparation reduces processing time, simplified sample preparation and eliminated variability in percent water of the final solution. They conclude that the direct evaporative sample preparation method offers distinct advantages over SPE by eliminating the sample clean-up step, improving reproducibility, decreasing analysis time, minimising waste generation and being more cost effective. In addition, as minimal sample handling is required using the direct evaporative methodology, this reduces the risk of cross contamination and analyte loss.