Improving efficiency and accuracy of pesticide residue analysis

In order to protect human health, the accurate measurement and analysis of pesticide residues in the environment and food has become an essential laboratory process around the world.

For almost twenty years since its founding in 2006 in Wakayama, Japan, AiSTI SCIENCE CO., Ltd has been dedicated to the development and manufacture of products and technologies that contribute positively to the environment and society.

Initially AiSTI SCIENCE started out by developing sample preparation technology for pesticide residue analysis and succeeded to automate the preparation process. In recent years, the company has been working to develop products that meet the challenges faced by users, such as fully automated analysis that performs all processes from pretreatment to analysis without human intervention. Tecan's Cavro® XCalibur pump and XLP 6000 pump have been installed in various instruments from AiSTI, including the SPL-M100 on-line solid phase extraction system series.

Preparation System: AiSTI SCIENCE On-line SPE-GC System SPL-P100 SPL-M100
Analytical Instrument: Shimadzu GCMS-TQTM 8040 NX

“One of AiSTI SCIENCE's great strengths is that we are a technology-oriented group. Many of our employees have experience in the field of analysis, which enables us to develop products that are more closely tailored to the needs of users. In particular, our mainstay on-line type equipment, which requires no human intervention between preparation and analysis, is the product that realizes the automation that users in the laboratory actually want. I am proud of the fact that we can realize what is truly needed by users.” says Mr. Ryoichi Sasano, President of AiSTI SCIENCE.

When AiSTI SCIENCE was established in 2006, the company was mainly engaged in the development of preparation technologies for pesticide residue analysis. Looking back on those early days, Mr. Sasano says, “At the time of the initial development, we did not know that syringe pumps were available in the market that could be integrated into the system, so we developed a system that included the dispensing solutions by combining a syringe and motor. We then launched this entirely in-house device onto the market. However, we felt it was hard to proceed with the development of the syringe and motor since the operation and speed control were not what we wanted. After a year of experimenting with various pumps, we were introduced to the Cavro series from Tecan and the partnership between AiSTI SCIENCE and Tecan began.” Mr. Sasano continues “We recognized Cavro pumps to have great performance and control, but there were some challenges we had to overcome due to the nature of the solvents we were using.” After working with Tecan's representatives and solving each problem one by one, the decision was made to install Cavro XE 1000 pumps on AiSTI equipment. After that, Cavro Xcalibur pumps were launched and integrated and had even better performance. So now, Xcalibur is the pump of choice in a variety of equipment, including AiSTI SPL series of on-line solid-phase extraction systems. “If I had known about the embedded pumps, we could have performed the original development more efficiently.” he reflects.

TheSPL-W100 on-line solid-phase extraction system series, with six Cavro pumps on the front panel. This is an automated system that performs everything from solid-phase extraction to LC-MS measurement by connecting the solid-phase extraction section to liquid chromatography (LC) or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Examples of analysis in the environmental field include pesticides in rivers and water, the much-discussed PFAS, pesticide residue analysis in food and caffeine in urine. In the pharmaceutical field, an example concerns modified nucleotides that have been implicated in the severity of the new coronavirus infection. The SPL-P100, which uses solid-phase extraction followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), has a proven track record in the analysis of pesticides in water and organic compounds in water. The SPL-M100 automatically performs solid-phase derivatization after solid-phase extraction and the derivatized target substance is measured by GC-MS. The SPL-M100 is used in the food and pharmaceutical industries to analyze flavor compounds and metabolomes in living organisms.

Preparation System: AISTI SCIENCE On-line SPE-LC System SPL-W100
Analytical Instrument: Shimadzu LCMS-8060

Currently, these instruments are launched only in Japan, but in the future, AiSTI SCIENCE plans to market them not just in Asia but also in North America and Europe, so it will not be long before these technologies and products are used in the global mass spectrometry market. “We hope that Tecan will continue to collaborate with us and will accompany us on our global expansion.” Mr. Sasano concluded.