Liquid chromatography/ultraviolet/mass instrumentation

A wide array of laboratory techniques and instrumentation is used in forensic studies. This includes ultraviolet, infrared, and visible spectrophotometry neutron activation analysis gas chromatography and mass spectrophotometry high pressure liquid chromatography and atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The techniques and instrumentation chosen depend on the type of sample or substance to be examined. 

Another development, also with a history in chemistry, is second-order calibration, where rank annihilation was developed for analyzing data from typically hyphenated instruments. This includes excitation-emission fluorescence spectra of different samples, liquid chromatography with ultraviolet (UV) detection for different samples and gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection for different samples, giving an array. An illustration is given in Figure 10.2. 

EDCs in the environment are often analyzed using GC or LC based instrumental techniques. GC coupled with an electron capture detector (BCD), a nitrogen-phosphorus detector (NPD), or mass spectrometry (MS) has been the preferred method due to its excellent sensitivity and separation capability on a capillary column. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with various detectors such as ultraviolet detection (UV), fluorescence detection (FLD), MS, and more recently tandem MS (MS/MS) has also been used for analysis of some EDCs, especially for the polar compounds. Analytical techniques for each class of EDCs will be discussed in the following section. 

Traditional instrumental techniques, such as nuclear magnetic NMR, mass spectrometry infrared (IR) spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry, and gas and liquid chromatography and size-exclusion chromatography, are used extensively for purity assessment and molecular structure and molecular weight measurements of monomers and polymers [61]. 

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