Perchlorates

A friend asked me about perchlorate detection today. Wow, what a topic!

Perchlorates, in the form of ammonium perchlorate and the other perchlorate salts are used in a wide range of applications, including pyrotechnics and fireworks, blasting agents, matches, lubricating oils, textile dye fixing, nuclear reactors, electronic tubes, tanning and finishing leather, rubber manufacturing, electroplating, aluminum refinishing, automobile air bag inflators, paint and enamel production, and pharmaceuticals (1).

Perchlorate is of concern for the following reasons (2):
(a)it has potential human health effects at low concentrations - another source mentioned that it inhibits the thyroid function;
(b)it may be widespread in the environment;
(c)removing it from water and soil may be costly; and
(d)it may have deleterious effects on ecosystems.

And aside from that, in the industry, it may have corrossive properties. That is the one that bothers us most here, since the environmental bit is hopefully taken cared of by the powers that be.

Off my head, would ionic chromatograph (IC) work for this? Afterall, they are talking about anions. And true enough, googling 'perchlorate analysis' gave me a list of hits which uses IC. And surprisingly, ESI-MS, which was a darling topic of mine during grad school. Which was one of the factors that pushed me into the field that I am in now, TOF-SIMS. Apparently, using the EPA 314.0 method for IC, there would be some interfering anions (e.g. chlorides, sulfates and carbonates) which would give false readings since the IC detection is via retention time identification. Other methods were made to overcome this, mainly, IC/MS/MS, LC/MS/MS and ESI-MS. I wonder if there were work done with other ionization methods e.g., FAB and MALDI.

This has been interesting.

(1). A Systematic Approach to In Situ Bioremediation in Groundwater
Interstate Technology Regulatory Council, 2002. www.itrcweb.org/Documentation/ISB-8.pdf

(2). http://www.clu-in.org/contaminantfocus/default.focus/sec/perchlorate/cat/Overview/