Simplified food safety testing
4000 LC-MS/MS system from Applied Biosystems in an effort to speed
up and improve its food safety testing capabilities.
The CVUA Sigmaringen Institute in Germany has installed a new API 4000 LC-MS/MS system from Applied Biosystems in an effort to speed up and improve its food safety testing capabilities.
Dr Juergen Buhlert, Head of the central HPLC and LC-MS/MS laboratories, explained: "Our institute works for the government of Baden-Wuerttemberg in south-west Germany, testing all foods, water and environmental samples that might have a negative impact on consumer health."
"Our first LC-MS/MS instrument bought a couple of years ago opened up so many new avenues that we needed another to cope with the resulting workload. We were looking for an instrument that was highly sensitive and robust and we were impressed by the innovative ideas that come from Applied Biosystems. These include the new source design of the API 4000 system, which allows us to easily change between ESI and APCI modes in under two minutes without tools."
"Using the API 4000 system, we can investigate polar substances much more easily without the need for clean-up procedures and complex derivatisation steps. In addition, before we had the API 4000 system, there was no reliable way of monitoring acrylamide levels in drinking water. Now, we simply inject the acidified water sample and can quantify the levels acrylamide at concentrations as low as 0.01 micrograms/L. This is because the high vaporisation capacity of the ion source gives very good sensitivity, even at higher LC flows in ESI mode."
Buhlert concluded: "The customer support from Applied Biosystems has been excellent. When you start using an unfamiliar technique and new instrument, it is essential to have the care of technical consultants and experts."
Applied Biosystems is a technology leader in the changing dynamics of the life science marketplace. The Applied Biosystems business is focused on basic research, commercial research and standardized testing, including forensic human identification, HIV genotyping and food testing. The company has an installed base of more than 50,000 instrument systems in approximately 100 countries and is currently based in California, US.
