CEFAS21-144 ITT HR-GC-MS

Requirement for a gas chromatograph - high resolution accurate mass spectrometric system (GC-HRMS) to maintain and enhance Cefas’ capability for specialist environmental contaminants determination at trace and ultra-trace level in the marine environment. Critically, this enhanced capability will principally enable the targeted analysis of known hazardous substances (such as PCBs, PAHs, PBDE flame retardants, pesticides, etc…), and enable the screening of suspect and non-target chemicals of emerging concern (CECs), including characterisation of unknown substances with maximum confidence. Typical sample matrices analysed include sediments, biota (such as fish, shellfish or aquatic mammals), passive samplers or oils.

In addition, the system proposed should include an integrated option for fully comprehensive GC x GC capability to enable enhanced separation of complex mixtures originating from challenging applications and matrices. These might include sample extracts from biotic materials (e.g. livers) or fingerprinting of oil hydrocarbons (from ca C8-C10 and above) including high molecular weight biomarkers for new marker discovery and forensic application in oil spill incidents. For some applications, it is expected that quantification of substances separated by GC x GC might be required.