Faculty of Health Sciences
Mashhad University of Medical Sciences

Instrumental Analysis Laboratory

With the start of graduate admissions in Environmental Health Engineering in the School of Public Health in October 2010, the laboratory was established resulted by continuous team members and experts' effort. The lab consists of three main equipment including gas chromatography (GC), atomic absorption (AAs) and gas chromatography high performance liquid (HPLC).

Activities

Atomic absorption spectrometer are capable of measuring elements in the following examples:

 Measuring elements in environmental samples (water / waste water / air / soil / solid waste);

Measurements of biological samples such as blood;

Elements measured in food samples;

Measurement of drug samples;

Measurements of biological samples such as blood;

Elements measured in food samples;

Measurement of drug samples;

Gas chromatography and gas chromatography, high-performance liquid system:

This work is based on the isolation and identification of two substances by fixed and mobile phases. The HPLC stationary phase may be solid or liquid, but the mobile phase, is liquid. HPLC separation of both solid and liquid phases are performed while the GC is the only mobile phase for separation. The main components of the system include tanks, solvents, motor or pump injector, column, detector and recorder.

The main differences between the HPLC and GC:

1) HPLC analysis time is less;

2) highly polar substances can not be measured by GC;

3) Many of the compounds not measurable by GC can be measured by HPLC;

4) analysis of volatile organic compounds is possible by HPLC;

5) The sensitivity of HPLC is higher than GC;

6) GC usually requires a high temperature for analysis, but the HPLC analysis is done in temperature room.

Some of these compounds have been measured in two ways:

1) total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH);

2) total cyclic hydrocarbons (PAH);

3) trihalomethanes (THM);

4) benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTEX);

5) odor-causing organic material;

6) chlorinated and oregano phosphorous pesticides;

7) volatile organic compounds and semi-volatile;

8) amino acids, proteins, nucleic acids, hydrocarbons, carbohydrates, drugs, pesticides, antibiotics etc.