Teledyne Leeman Labs Blog

President Biden’s Executive Order 13990 directed the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency to undergo a policy and regulation review of changes to the Clean Air Act set forth during President Trump’s administration. The order instructed the EPA to suggest revisions and/or cancellation of regulations and policies that at first glance do not seem to be in the best interest of public health.

Do you have a backlog of solids and/or semisolid samples you need to analyze for mercury determination? Or are you a teaching laboratory needing an instrument to complete that proposal you wrote? Or a laboratory exploring options to enhance your portfolio? Well, I encourage you to look to Teledyne Leeman Labs for viable options.

Hey Again! Let’s talk about having some fun while saving some money — lots of money, as a matter of fact!

In the world of green this and green that, with electric vehicles, lawn equipment, and scooters, we want to do our part to make the planet a better place.

What’s my exposure risk to heavy metals such as lead, antimony, beryllium, chromium, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury?

In my last blog (“How Valid Is Your Data? - Part 1”) we discussed what happens when samples enter the laboratory. We covered spiking of samples, control blanks and relative percent difference in sample concentrations. That discussion led me to close Part 1 with a “reality check” example from my own experience analyzing beverages. While everything looked great from the outside looking in… a hidden issue needed to be resolved: spectra did not match the control blanks and/or calibration. This indicated the existence of a kinetics issue in the online reduction reaction used to achieve elemental Hg – specifically, method timing constraints.

In Part 2 of this blog, I am happy to report that I’ve successfully analyzed brewed coffee, red wine, milk, orange juice, brewed tea and soda pop. The original method guidance I was using was written for ICP, via microwave digestion. Sometimes H₂O₂ is used to enhance oxidation in microwave digestion and the method did in fact use H₂O₂. Knowing that dissolved oxygen would interfere with the reduction used in the CVAA technique, I assumed that the digestion process would entirely consume the H₂O₂. Well it didn’t, hence my spectra issues which affected the results!

If this is your first time visiting www.teledyneleemanlabs.com and/or stumbling upon our blog, Teledyne Leeman Labs has been in the business of making benchtop mercury analyzers for over 30 years. Myself, I’ve been with the company, wearing a variety of different hats, for 24 years. Prior to landing this 24-year gig, I was an analytical research chemist at the University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) in Grand Forks, ND. So, with a career like this, I’ve seen a lot of data - some good, and some not so good!