Citation:

GRANGE, A. H. RAPID SPATIAL MAPPING OF CHEMICALS DISPERSED ACROSS SURFACES USING AN AUTOSAMPLER/DART/TOFMS. Presented at 55th American Society of Mass Spectrometry Conference on Mass Spectrometry, Indianapolis, IN, June 03 - 07, 2007.

Impact/Purpose:

Provide state-of-the-science sampling, analysis, separation, and detection methods to allow rapid, accurate field and laboratory analyses of contaminated soils, sediments, biota, and groundwater to support Superfund clean-up decisions. Apply state-of-the-science methods in chemical analysis and data interpretation (e.g., mass spectral interpretation) to actual problems of OSWER, the Regions, and the States, in cooperation with the Las Vegas Technical Support Center as well as by direct contacts with Regional and State employees. Provide technical advice and guidance to OSWER using the environmental chemistry expertise (e.g., mass spectrometry, analytical methods development, clean-up methodology, inorganics, organometallics, volatile organics, non-volatile organics, semi-volatile organics, separation technologies, etc.) found within the branch.

Technical research support for various projects initiated either by Regions/Program Offices or ECB scientists. While these efforts will support the Regions and Program Offices, they cannot be predicted or planned in advance, and may serve multiple duty (e.g., solve real-world problems, serve to ground-truth analytical approaches that ECB is developing, transfer new technology). Many of the activities in this task support requests involving enforcement decisions and therefore are categorized as "environmental forensics".

Description:

Rapid identification and semi-quantitation of chemicals spatially dispersed and

deposited on surfaces by accidental, deliberate, or weather-related events requires analysis of

hundreds of samples, usually obtained by sampling with wipes. Hand-held devices used on-site such

as ion mobility spectrometers can rule out a list of toxic compounds, but provide low selectivity and

cannot identify unanticipated analytes. Recently developed ambient-air sampling ion sources such as

Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART) and Desorption Electrospray Ionization (DESI) eliminate the

need for sample extraction, clean-up, and chromatography. Compounds on surfaces are ionized in

ambient air and the ions are mass analyzed. A DART/TOFMS provides exact masses sufficiently

accurate to provide ion compositions for low mass ions and neutral losses from full scan data.

Record Details: