Application Note

RSS

The cleanliness of parts and assemblies is critical to many modern high technology industries, and impacts not only yield, but also the viability of the products. As surfaces define many of the properties of materials, even trace surface contaminants may dramatically alter the properties and performance characteristics of a material. Low level contamination can therefore be extremely detrimental to the processing or application of the components downstream.

It is vital for these industries to quickly recognize that a component has become contaminated, identify the contaminant, and trace the contamination to the specific part of the process affected. Failure to quickly identify and respond to contamination may lead to product hold, major recall, or loss of revenue and reputation.

To optimize the cleaning process and troubleshoot problems in the manufacturing process, a rapid and easy sampling method and measurement is required. Here, the Waters® ACQUITY UPLC system has been modified to provide direct injection without any separation, which greatly enhances the sensitivity of the method for the detection of low-level contaminants. For these analyses, adopting a chemometric approach can quickly provide information about the similarities and differences with in large mass spectral datasets, and may be used to highlight sudden changes, such as appearance of a new contaminant.

Automation of this process greatly reduces the analysis time required and the probability of error in this assessment, while increasing sensitivity. A database of possible contaminants can also be built, so that identified contaminants can be traced to a particular source or process.

ACQUITY UPLC System Benefits:

• Provides a simple and rapid method for the detection of organic and ionic contaminants as part of the quality control of manufactured ‘clean' parts.
• Streamlines workflow, from instruments setup and sample analysis, to data processing.
• Facilitates fast automated data processing and interpretation with MarkerLynx™ XS Software, providing quick access to information about clean and contaminated parts.