Suchergebnisse

The application of new sorbent-film coated passive samplers for capture of bulk commercial and military explosives vapours in operationally relevant spaces such as luggage, rooms, vehicles and shipping containers is presented. Samplers were easily integrated with in-service detection technologies with little/no sample preparation required. Ethylene glycol dinitrate (EGDN) was detected within 4 h in a container holding a suitcase packed with 0.2 kg Perunit 28E. Within a 22,000 dm3 room, 1 kg of concealed Seguridad was detected within 24 h and in an adjoining room within 7 days. Exposed samplers also successfully captured components of 1 kg TNT after 72 h and 1 kg concealed Perunit 28E after 6 h in both a furnished room and a large, partially filled shipping container. For the latter, samplers captured detectable residues outside the container after 24 h and were stable during wet weather for 72 h. A one-week trial at three operationally relevant venues including a university, a theatre and a government building revealed a nuisance positive rate of <1.4% (n = 72). Finally, two alternative applications are presented for extraction of liquid samples and use a particulate contact swab showing flexibility for a range of different search activities.

This is the postprint (accepted manuscript) version of the article published in Trends in Analytical Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trac.2018.03.009 ; Thirty-seven laboratories from 25 countries present the development of an inter-laboratory testing scheme for the analysis of seven illicit drug residues in standard solutions, tap- and wastewater. Almost 10 000 concentration values were evaluated: triplicates of up to five samples and 26 laboratories per year. The setup was substantially improved with experiences gained across the six repetitions (e.g. matrix type, sample conditions, spiking levels). From this, (pre-)analytical issues (e.g. pH adjustment, filtration) were revealed for specific analytes which resulted in formulation of best-practice protocols for inter-laboratory setup and analytical procedures. The results illustrate the effectiveness of the inter-laboratory setup to assess laboratory performance in the framework of wastewater-based epidemiology. The exercise proved that measurements of laboratories were of high quality (>80% satisfactory results for six out of seven analytes) and that analytical follow-up is important to assist laboratories in improving robustness of wastewater-based epidemiology results ; This article is based upon work from COST Action ES1307 supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). We wish to acknowledge EMCDDA and Yeonsuk Ryu for support in the organization of the scheme and assistance in the preparation of the test samples, respectively. The following funding sources are acknowledged: the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) (Grant number: 1285216N), the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, the Generalitat Valenciana, Xunta de Galicia, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Office for Combating Narcotic Drug Abuse of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, EU FP7 project SOLUTIONS (603437), the Government of Catalonia, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Ministry of Education, Youth and ...