Summary of Recent Organic Tests Accreditations
Over the past year Eurofins-ELS has gained IANZ accreditation for a wide range of new organic chemistry based tests in samples such as waters, effluents, landfills, soils and sludges. This month’s newsletter is a summary of all those new tests.
Customers will see changes to their reports while we roll out these new tests.
Test Name: Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds
Sample Matrices: Waters and Environmental Samples including soils and sludges.
Semi-Volatile organic compounds are a group of compounds that includes some pesticides, ingredients in cleaning agents and personal care products, and additives to materials such as vinyl flooring, furniture, clothing, cookware, food packaging and electronics.
While the individual compounds offered in a SVOC suite differ from lab to lab, they generally include compounds in the following categories:
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Organochlorine pesticides Organonitrogen pesticides Organophosphourous pesticides Polyaromatic hydrocarbons |
Polychlorinated biphenyl compounds Phenolic compounds Phthalate plasticiser compounds |
Test Name: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons or PAH
Sample Matrices: Waters and Environmental Samples including soils and sludges.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons that are composed of multiple aromatic rings like the diagram below.
PAH compounds include names like:
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Acenapthene Acetnaphthylene Anthracene benz(a)anthracene Benzo(a)pyrene Benzo(b)fluoranthrene Benzo(g,h,i)perylene Benzo(k)fluoranthrene Chrysene |
Dibenz(a,h)anthracene Fluoranthene Fluorene Indeno(1,2,3-cd)pyrene Naphthalene Phenanthrene Pyrene |
Test Name: Volatile Organic Compounds or VOC
Sample Matrices: Waters, Landfill and Environmental Samples including soils and sludges.
Volatile Organic Compounds are a large group of natural and man-made organic chemicals that evaporate (or boil) at low temperatures. VOC examples include scents and odours as well as compounds such as formaldehyde which has a boiling point of minus 19ºC.
The Eurofins VOC suite contains over 60 individual compounds which fall into sub groups such as: Hydrocarbons, Halogenated hydrocarbons and haloforms, Aromatics, and Trihalomethanes.
Test Name: Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons
Sample Matrices: Waters, Landfill and Environmental Samples including soils and sludges.
Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons is a term used for any mixture of hydrocarbons that are derived from crude oil. There are several hundred of these compounds, including petrol, natural gas, diesel, lubricating oils as well as asphalt and bitumen. They are an environmental problem requiring remedial action once found.
Test Name: BTEX
Sample Matrices: Waters and Environmental Samples including soils and sludges.
BTEX is an acronym that stands for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. These compounds are some of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found in petroleum derivatives such as petrol (gasoline). Toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes are tested in our environment because they cause contamination of soil and groundwater and can have harmful effects on the central nervous system.
Test Name: Acrylamide
Sample Matrices: Waters
Acrylamide is a chemical that naturally forms in starchy food products during hightemperature cooking, including frying, baking, and roasting. In New Zealand, acrylamide is used in the flocculation processes of water treatment plants so a large percentage of acrylamide testing is performed on drinking water and water used within companies that export product to overseas markets.
Test Name: Taste and Odour Compounds
Sample Matrices: Waters and Drinking Water
Local and District Councils producing drinking water from surface supplies encounter
these compounds at different times of the year, and they are not removed by conventional treatment systems. Eurofins-ELS can test for three compounds that can be found in source waters such as rivers and lakes or in reticulated town supply water. The three compounds are:
- Geosmin
- 2-Methylisoborneol (MIB)
- 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA)
