Researchers unveil method to detect 'forever chemicals' in under 3 minutes

Bell@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 123 points –
Researchers unveil method to detect 'forever chemicals' in under 3 minutes
phys.org

New Jersey Institute of Technology chemists have demonstrated a new lab-based method to detect traces of PFAS from food packaging material, water and soil samples in just three minutes or less.

7

Under 3 minutes? What's the rush, these are forever chemicals, they've got all the time in the world.

They may last forever, but they are skittish little things. You gotta move fast after you turn the lights on 'cause they scatter like cockroaches.

“ Chen and colleagues say the new method—involving an ionization technique for analyzing the molecular composition of sample materials called paper spray mass spectrometry (PS-MS)—is 10–100 times more sensitive than the current standard technique for PFAS testing, liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry.”

Or just answer this questionnaire I just made up:

Is that water? Yes Did you melt it from an ancient glacier? No Is it from planet earth? Yes

You’ve got microplastics flavored water!

PFAS <> microplastics, but you’re not wrong

In an attempt to be funny, I missed that! I should have known because if I’m not mistaken microplastics are super hard to measure accurately and LCMS isn’t even one of the methods used!