Chromatography Forum

Is any one using EPA 524.3? If so what are the pros/cons of switching from 524.2 to 524.3?

THANKS!!

Not everyone has a chilled autosampler tray. But not having to pass BFB checks every 12hrs, priceless!

Is this the only benfit? I usually have small sequences, that probably would not be affected by the BFB/12hrs.

There are several benefits depending upon what you auditor is currently telling you about 524.2. In many states, customers are forced to desorb samples for 4 minutes. In 524,3 there is no such requirement. In addition, you can choose to purge for only 5 or six minutes. This combination of lower desorb time and shorter purge cycle will reduce moisture in your system and make it much more robust long term.

There seem to be other ways to limit the water using 524.2 that I am working on. My opinion is I will not use .3 unless forced to. I do not like the calibration and QC sections. I would also have to rebuild my P&T to purge 5 ml, plus my autosampler is not chilled. I don't want to go back to spiking samples. I did it for 5-8 years in the 90's before EPA dropped the requirement in .2. I never saw any matrix effects using P&T.

To state up front, I am an Applications Chemist at Teledyne Tekmar. There are numerous reasons to chose 524.3.

Added to list:
• Reformulated gas additives including TBA and Ethers.
• Emerging contaminants of interest including 1,3-Butadiene and
Chlorodifluoromethane.
• MTBE breakdown product Methyl Acetate.
Removed from list.
• Ketones
• Acrylates
• Nitriles including Nitrobenzene

Greater workability in the purge parameters allow for faster analysis times.

We have tech notes and a camparision of 524.2 to 524.3 on our website Tekmar.com .

Also the other instrument manufactures have also placed technical notes on their websites.

The macro for the printing of the linearity values for all of the compounds is availabe from Agilent. I have the command string if anybody would like to email me.