Ensuring high-quality in elemental analysis of environmental samples

Demand for trace metals analysis in the Environmental laboratory is growing strongly due to stricter environmental regulations. ICP has been the standard for metals analysis, but as demand for lower levels of detection grows, the laboratories are experiencing a significant transition to ICP-MS thus placing increased emphasis on the sample preparation method. Traditional sample preparation techniques for environmental include hot block digestion, closed-vessel microwave digestion, and ashing; each of them poses different challenges.

Hot block digestions suffer from long digestions, airborne contamination, poor digestion quality, and poor recovery of volatile compounds. Closed vessel microwave digestion has proven to be an effective technique with fast, complete digestions, clean environment, and full recovery of volatile compounds.

Closed vessel microwave digestion is now included in the US EPA, official sample preparation methods for most of environmental samples.

ETHOS technology is perfectly designed for the three US EPA methods:

• EPA 3015A: Microwave assisted acid digestion of aqueous samples and extracts.
• EPA 3051A: Microwave assisted acid digestion of sediments, sludges, soils and oils.
• EPA 3052: Microwave assisted acid digestion of siliceous and organically based matrices.

Milestone’s ETHOS UP, microwave digestion system, incorporates all of the benefits of closed vessel microwave digestion while making sample preparation fast, easy, effective, and of the highest quality.

The ETHOS UP is a flexible and high performing platform used for elemental analysis and routine determinations in many applications. It’s construction of stainless steel coated with five PTFE layers and accommodates both high-pressure and high-throughput rotors.

Learn more about ETHOS UP.

Equipped with the easyTEMP contactless temperature sensor, it directly controls the temperature of all samples and solutions, providing accurate temperature feedback to ensure complete digestion in all vessels with the highest safety.

The superior temperature measurement of the easyTEMP allows processing of mixed batch samples cutting down the labor time and increasing the overall throughput.

This technology combines the fast and accurate reading of an in-situ temperature sensor with the flexibility of an infrared sensor. The ETHOS UP software provides digestion history traceability and temperature measurement for every sample; the temperature diagram and profiles are displayed real-time, and then can be saved on the ETHOS UP terminal.

Click here to see how easyTEMP works.

The performance of the Milestone’s ETHOS UP equipped with SK-15 easyTEMP rotor was evaluated through a recovery study on Sandy loam soil (CRM027), Lake sediment (BCR280R), Fly ash (BCR 176R). The sample were digested with Milestone’s ETHOS UP and subsequently analyzed via ICP-OES.

The data obtained in this study demonstrates full recovery of the element reported in the certificates of the reference material.

Milestone’s ETHOS UP equipped with MAXI-44 rotor demonstrates full compatibility with official EPA environmental methods with accurate and full control of the digestion process by the easyTEMP sensor, ensuring same digestion quality and reliable results even in large sample amounts and in a mixed batch samples run. In addition to full analyte recovery, microwave digestion using Millstone ETHOS UP provides the highest level of reproducibility, great ease of use and high productivity.

Read the Application Report here.