FTIR 4500a

Portable phthalate screening

© Agilent Technologie

Phthalates are added to plastics as plasticizers. However, some are suspected of causing serious damage to health and are therefore banned. To ensure that no products containing dangerous phthalates enter the market, both importing companies and market surveillance authorities are required to test consumer goods such as clothing or toys. Anyone who wants to decide directly in the toy store or in the goods receiving department whether the goods are OK must be able to reliably detect phthalates directly on site.

Screening with FTIR faster than GC/MS

Up to now, samples have been laboriously analyzed in the laboratory using GCMS. This is associated with long waiting times. However, phthalates also generate characteristic signals in an IR spectrum. Precisely defined energies are required for vibration excitation, which can be identified and also quantified with FTIR technology – a good basis for rapid on-site detection of phthalates.

Simple analyses without sample preparation

The FTIR 4500a infrared spectrometer provides perfect support. The analyzer is battery-powered and integrated into a small case. This means that it can be easily used wherever samples are generated. These are fixed directly on the sample plate of the instrument without further pretreatment, eliminating the need for time-consuming extractions. Instrument control and results output are performed on a portable Windows Surface tablet. It is preconfigured with the necessary calibrations for phthalate quantification. This allows screening to begin immediately and can be performed by staff with no prior scientific knowledge. The recording of an IR spectrum within seconds and its equally fast evaluation enable a high sample throughput and efficient work.

Benefits

• Small, portable, in a practical case
• High-precision mid-IR analysis
• non-destructive analysis without sample preparation
• fast, results within seconds
• no consumables
• High sample throughput
• preconfigured for phthalate screening
• Results can be evaluated without prior scientific knowledge
• Relief of other laboratory instruments (GC/MS)

The FTIR 4500a is a full-featured FTIR spectrometer with ATR interface and can be used beyond phthalate screening for mobile FTIR applications that were previously only possible in the laboratory. With the intuitive software, own databases and calibrations are quickly created.

Areas of application

• Quality assurance
• Identification testing
• Plastics analysis
• Research and development