Supelco® Smart SPME Fibers

Supelco® Smart SPME fibres designed for the PAL3 Series II autosampler combine Supelco’s SPME coating expertise and innovations with Smart technology for seamless sample preparation. The Smart fibres are equipped with a unique Smart chip that allows users to monitor essential parameters such as stroke count, dates of operation, and temperature exposure (Figure 1). Additionally, the Smart chip defines the limitations of the specific SPME fibre coating being utilised thus allowing the system to alert the user if a programmed method falls outside of the recommended parameters. The complete Supelco SPME portfolio is now available in the Smart SPME format, including the innovative Carboxen®, dual-coated, and overcoated fibres.

Carboxen® (CAR/PDMS) coated SPME fibres offer the most efficient extraction of small volatile analytes (molecular weight < 150). Due to the greater relative absorptive strength of the used Carboxen® carbon molecular sieve (CMS) for small molecules, compared to spherical graphitised polymer carbon (SGPC) or graphitised carbon black (GCB) adsorbents, the fibres can retain volatile analytes more strongly for more sensitive and reliable results. This characteristic can be attributed to the Carboxen® tapered pore structure which results in enhanced thermodynamic properties and kinetics, enabling both efficient adsorption and desorption of low molecular weight or volatile compounds. Carboxen® fibres are ideal for trace level analysis. Carboxen® fibres are also used in the dual coated DVB/CAR/PDMS version, which offers high extraction efficiencies of a particle fibre and expands the molecular weight range that can be sampled with a single fibre.

Supelco® SPME-OC (overcoated) PDMS/DVB fibres were designed to address the challenges associated with immersion SPME of complex/high background matrices. During direct immersion, food samples which contain fats, sugars, pigments, and other macromolecules tend to stick to adsorptive (particle) SPME fibres causing a reduction in fibre life time. Additionally, these matrix components can be transferred to the GC where they may interfere with chromatographic analysis and/or cause more frequent maintenance. Supelco® SPME-OC PDMS/DVB fibres incorporate a protective PDMS overcoating on the fibre making it more physically robust, less prone to chemical fouling, and enable an efficient wash step reducing matrix transfer. For example, Supelco® SPME-OC PDMS/DVB fibres were used for the direct immersion analysis of bisphenol A (BPA) in pureed carrot baby food (Figure 2).

Supelco’s comprehensive portfolio of SPME fibres, including the innovative Carboxen®, dual-coated, and overcoated fibres were engineered to ensure optimal extraction & desorption efficiency, limit sample carryover, and enable sampling of analytes over a wide molecular weight range. Supelco’s tried-and-true SPME fibres combined with Smart technology offer the user accurate, precise and consistent results – every time.

More information online: www.sial.com/spme