CEM analysis of the concept of chemical control points

CEM, a 40-year history of microwave chemistry, has been advocating and promoting the concept of laboratory safety risk management. For a long time, CEM's special risk management concept has not only changed and influenced the thinking of a generation, but also made many users deep. Deeply benefit from it. CEM's risk control concept is based on system control and a large number of fault statistics, based on the treatment of the standard, to prevent problems before they occur, from the nature of many complex factors affecting the analysis of chemical results, traceability to the most critical control point (Critical Control Factor) And then focus on it to achieve the goal of improving and optimizing laboratory management of analytical chemical science results. It has revolutionized the laboratory risk management awareness of many CEM users around the world.

The whole process of trace element analysis consists of the above five processes, and each step of the operation is improper, which may cause the final result to fail. But unbelievably, according to the long-term statistics of cooperation with EPA, CEM found that 70-80 times of every 100 analysis failures occurred in the key step of sample preparation, any inappropriate, leaky, incomplete, incomplete Sample pre-processing directly leads to analysis failure, making subsequent analysis meaningless. And 100% of pollution accidents, and safety incidents occur at this point, to ensure the success of the analysis, and the key control point for the safety of laboratory operators is microwave sample pretreatment. Just as 80% of traffic accidents occur in drunk driving and fatigue driving, legally controlling drunk driving is the idea of ​​using safety control points.

For example, China has not formed a mature system for food microbial safety control. For a long time, the target has been set in various microbial treatment requirements. Microbial growth is a complex system of factors such as hygienic conditions, temperature, acidity, etc., while ignoring the key control influence factors - the key control point for water activity control is water activity, by controlling the water activity index, It can fundamentally block the growth of microorganisms. It is precisely because of this deficiency that the current abuse of domestic preservatives has been unable to cure, and preservatives can cause developmental disorders of children's IQ, which is potentially harmful. For example, China uses the internationally accepted Kay-type nitrogen method to test protein, which is based on nitrogen to obtain protein content, while domestic milk protein content is originally slightly lower than the international level. The lack of analytical methods and congenital protein deficiency cause melamine food. The direct cause of a safety incident. If China can find another way to trace the protein test standard to the basic amino acid composition, that is, if the test standard is based on the amino acid mark as the key control point to get the true protein content, it will not cause the melamine scandal, but because of the current situation in China The standard still uses the traditional Kay Ding method after the accident, and the country still needs to spend a lot of money to buy some equipment for testing the melamine content or other additives in the milk, which is a way of headache and pain. Failure to solve the fundamental problem is completely in the end.

The same problem exists in the analytical chemistry community. For example, the EPA found that no matter how expensive the AA, ICP, and ICP-MS are equipped in the lab, if there is a problem with the inconspicuous microwave digestion, the results of all tens of millions of billions of equipment investment will be wasted. In comparison, the investment in microwave digestion and sample preparation accounts for less than 0.1% of the total investment in analytical chemistry laboratories. Therefore, from the analysis of the input-output ratio, it is unwise to over-estimate the small price difference between manufacturers. In order to ensure the correct results of analytical chemistry, EPA attaches great importance to the evaluation and investment of microwave sample pretreatment equipment. It only marks the most reliable brand-name product for a long time and is a symbol of a mature laboratory with risk management awareness.

It must be pointed out that if there are no major accidents immediately, such as food safety incidents, analysis failures are often not immediately detected and discovered, and may never be discovered. For example, an inconspicuous microwave digestion device has caused the wrong analysis of trace elements in a laboratory for 10 years and has not been discovered, which is caused by the loss of trace elements. Improper sample preparation can cause huge damage and tragedy. For example, in Taiwan, China, for 30 years, the use of plasticizers as food leveling agents, causing hidden hazards, such as male developmental defects, the overall quality of the body, etc., affecting a whole generation, the consequences are not only shocking, it is unbearable I don't dare to look back, and everything will not be able to make up. Therefore, we have to think deeply about the social responsibility and significance of chemical risk control because it is concerned with the well-being of human beings.

Therefore, microwave sample pretreatment is the bottleneck of trace element analysis. Most analysis failures will occur at this critical point. Every laboratory should be duty-bound and cultivate risk management awareness, so that our analysis results will reassure the society. Let the people rest assured and let the country rest assured. Strengthening quality control at this critical point and using the most reliable, safest and best microwave sample preparation will achieve twice the result with half the effort. It is very important to reduce risks and improve quality and safety management. Completing the mission given by the national society and the people is our unshirkable responsibility for analyzing chemical experimenters.

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