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SPE Benefits
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Solid Phase Extraction materials have tremendous financial and environmental benefits. Generally speaking, SPE methodologies use fractional amounts of organic solvent relative to contemporary and historical regulatory methods. As a result, laboratories become more profitable by saving money on solvent consumption, and in the process emit fewer ozone depleting organic solvents. Help your wallet and the earth’s ozone layer now.
The following example is an attempt to describe how a real laboratory (Lab X) implemented, used and compared Solid Phase extraction.
LAB X is a medium sized environmental laboratory with revenues of 2.4million dollars a year and 14 employees. On average they extract 10 liquid samples a day 5 days a week for a monthly total of 200 samples. Per EPA methodology, LAB X performed EPA method SW-846 3510C (Liquid-liquid extraction) for all liquid extractions. In doing so, LAB X used the following amounts of consumables per sample:
Liquid-Liquid Extraction
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Consumable
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Amount
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Cost
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Methylene Chloride
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250 milliliters
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$8.75 per sample
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Sodium Sulfate
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100 grams
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$0.90 per sample
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Hexane
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50 milliliters
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$1.25 per sample
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Total
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$10.90 per sample
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So, it cost $15.15 to complete a liquid extraction. Take note, 99.4% of consumable cost is organic solvents!
In December of 2008, LAB X bought a United Solution kit (detailed here) and began using it per EPA method 3535A. Using the vacuum manifold, pump, and SPE cartridges, LABX used the following amounts of consumable supplies:
Solid Phase Extraction
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Consumable
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Amount
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Cost
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Methylene Chloride
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15 milliliters
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$0.53 per sample
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Sodium Sulfate
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0.5 grams
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$0.05 per sample
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Hexane
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5mL
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$0.13 per sample
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SPE Materials
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1 Cartridge
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$1.90 per sample
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Total
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$2.61 per sample
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Remember, if we finish the calculation, LAB X extracts 200 samples a month. That equals a net monthly savings to LAB X of $1658.00!
SPE saves time too. In the example listed above it takes a technician 4 hours to extract 10 samples. When using a PSE vacuum manifold, all of your samples are run in parallel. This means you can extract up to 12 samples simultaneously. On average a technician will extract
The example given above is not an uncommon example. Many analytical laboratories, covering all industries, can employ SPE. Start saving time, money and our little planet today!
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BROWSE BY ANALYTE
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BROWSE BY METHOD
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BROWSE BY MEDIA
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BROWSE BY INDUSTRY
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BROWSE BY CATEGORY
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