Certech acquired an Agilent Q-TOF 6546 mass spectrometer (MS) detector for high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The instrument allows the investigation of compounds with higher molecular weights (up to 10 000 daltons) using atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI). The detector also has a better sensitivity and a better identification power to deal with unknowns thanks to its higher resolution, higher mass precision and the possibility to apply the collision-induced fragmentation. This instrument is particularly well suited to characterize recycled plastic materials containing legacy additives, degradation products from additives and polymers (NIAS- Non Intentionally Added Substances), usually in low concentrations. Analytical methods are also being developed with the QTOF detector to identify and quantify the oligomeric fractions having molecular weights lower than 10 000 daltons in the framework of REACH-polymer requiring registration (PRR) requirements. These methods are complementary to the methods already developed at Certech to analyze the molecular weight distribution and chemical structure of the polymer using a multitude of detectors: light scattering (LS), viscometer, differential refractive index (RI), evaporative light scattering (ELSD), UV and FT-IR.
Certech’s technology platform allows the complete characterization of materials (chemical, physical, mechanical and sensory properties).
