The TFA & DFA Challenge Solved: Ultra-Sensitive Detection with End-to-End Automation
Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is an ultra-short-chain PFAS of growing concern due to its extreme persistence, high mobility, and widespread occurrence in environmental and drinking water sources. This presentation reviews the emerging regulatory attention, and the analytical challenges associated with trace-level measurement, including background contamination, matrix effects, ion suppression, and confirmatory analysis.
The webinar introduces a fully automated SCIEX LC-MS/MS workflow for rapid, sensitive quantification of TFA across multiple matrices, with the flexibility to incorporate DFA and TFMS into the same analytical approach.
Validation data demonstrates excellent linearity, repeatability, accuracy, robustness, and matrix tolerance in drinking water, surface water, wastewater, mineral water, and a wide variety of food matrices. With 40 samples plus standards analyzed in less than four hours, the workflow supports high-throughput routine monitoring for environmental, food, regulatory, and contract testing laboratories.
By attending this webinar you will be able to:
- Implement strategies to minimize contamination and matrix effects during trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) analysis.
- Evaluate the benefits of automated internal standard addition and automated calibration preparation.
- Apply a high-throughput LC-MS/MS workflow capable of quantifying TFA down to 20 ng/L with confirmation by two MRM transitions.
- Understand how trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TFMS) and difluoroacetic acid (DFA) can be incorporated into the same analytical workflow.
Who should attend?
This webinar is designed for laboratory professionals and decision-makers involved in ultra-short-chain PFAS analysis, particularly those working in environmental, drinking water, wastewater, PFAS, regulatory, and contract testing laboratories:
- Commercial laboratory managers, technical directors, and QA/validation specialists responsible for method implementation, data quality, ROI and regulatory readiness.
- LC-MS/MS method developers, analytical chemists, and application scientists working on trace-level TFA, DFA, TFMS, or broader PFAS workflows.
- Environmental scientists, researchers, and laboratory staff focused on emerging contaminants in drinking water, surface water, wastewater, mineral water, and other complex water matrices such as food.
What you need to know:
Start times:
- Broadcast 1: 10 am BST (London/Lisbon) / 11 am CEST (Paris/Berlin) / 2:30 pm IST (New Delhi)
- Broadcast 2: 10 am PDT (Los Angeles) / 12 pm CDT (Chicago) / 1 pm EDT (New York)
Presenter: Carlos Bueno (Senior Aftermarket Workflow Specialist, Food, Environmental and Forensics, SCIEX EMEA)
Carlos Bueno is a Senior Aftermarket Workflow Specialist for EMEA at SCIEX with more than 20 years of experience in chromatography and mass spectrometry. After earning his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 2001 and spending four years at the Madrid Doping Control Laboratory, he built an extensive career focused on analytical application development for food safety and environmental testing markets. Since joining SCIEX in 2023, he has supported laboratories across EMEA in implementing advanced LC-MS/MS solutions and optimizing analytical workflows, and is currently leading SCIEX EMEA's PFAS initiative.
