How would analyse this ambigous material ?

[WESAM]

Hi ,

If the police bring to you a material that is unknow , from where to start to say this materials contains ( x, y , z , n ) harmfull materials .In case if you have RP-HPLC is it possible to know by comparing retention time ( of course not because we know that some cmpds have the same Rt ). I know many will use GC-MS OR LC-MS , BUT do you thing this will help to identify the compounds exactly , does this want specific method but how you can know the method and this material is completly unknown . is the library that is attached is trustabe ? . if you say it is 1 ppm other instrument will say 20 ppm !

By the way , are there books that we can follow to find what harmfull cmpds that are in mint , or vegetables , fruits etc .

I know the questions are a bit difficult so don't forget to say hello by answering me .

Thanks

[tom jupille]

WESAM, I was nice to you last time, but you *are* stretching things a bit.

The deal on exam questions is this: you answer as best you can, and we'll either validate your answers or provide hints to point you in the right direction.

[WESAM]

It is not an exam question believe me Tom , i just want to ask about the culture a round this area i swear just for knowledge not for exam ! .I was expected someone to say ' buy the EPA method on HPLC it will tell you about every things in regualted methods '. or see this web as an example .

Because my friend open in his country small lab to deal with testing mint , vegetables and he ask me to find method for him . The scientific papers are really ambigous we can not understand from it .So i said maybe someone will help to find out about this .

Any way , Thanks for you

[DR]

Think about where the sample comes from, think about what it "might" contain, think about waht sorts of things you *should* be looking for.

Samples of vegetables - you might be interested in pesticides, airborne contaminants and things in the groundwater.

Meat samples - you're probably going to be interested in hormones, antibiotic metabolites, e-coli and prions.

The more specific your list of things you want to test for, the easier it will be to find methods.