Biocides

The Biocidal Products Directive (BPD) Directive 98/8/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 1998 concerning the placing of biocidal products on the market. The Biocidal Products Directive sets up a European Community product authorisation scheme for biocidal products, such as non-agricultural pesticides, disinfectants and preservatives. The Directive has the central objectives of harmonising the European market for biocidal products and their active substances, and providing a high level of protection for humans, animals and the environment.

These products now require batch and storage stability testing similar to the guidelines applied to Agrochemical products. DNAL have been working with several manufacturers of these products to resolve these requirements for a huge variety of materials. Some examples are listed below, but we are working hard to provide innovative solutions to meet the guidelines for these products types.

Metal salts such as Copper Sulphate are widely used in organic farming. Our ICP-OES allows samples to be assayed for a list of elements present in the sample. This is typically used to determine the content of heavy metals such as the Copper and other metals which are present as Impurities. The application of Ion Chromatography can then determine the presence of the Sulphate ion and other Anions to create a complete profile of the Metal Salt. These techniques can be used to Perform 5 Batch analysis studies and storage stability studies.

Rodenticides have come under this regulation. We have developed methods to determine extremely low concentrations of the associated active ingredients in challenging matrix types such as Wax blocks. The use of the ICP-OES has allowed us measure the content of specific lists of Metals and Cyanide which may be present in rodenticides required by some registration authorities. We have successfully adapted Agrochemical methodologies for Animal repellents such as Denatonium Benzoate to apply to these products allowing this to be assays for storage stability studies.

Natural Plant Extracts have become very popular with the uptake of Organic farming. We have been able to profile many natural oils finding routes to obtain and certify standard components to create complete profiles which we have used to create studies 5 batch studies for natural products. By determining the primary ingredients present we have been able to conduct storage stability studies on natural oil products.

Five Batch analysis of highly Acidic solutions such Phosphonic Acid can often be difficult, but using a combination of wet chemistry, ICP-OES and Ion Chromatography we have been able to create several 5 batch profiles for this type of material.

Alongside meeting the Agrochemical requirements and validation requirements outlines by Sanco documents we can also address the Reach requirements for Biocides. We have experience on how to apply the guidelines to complex mixtures and the instrumentation to adapt the testing as required.

Cleaning Products and Detergents

The bulk of the cleaning products and detergents DNAL have look at contain a series of quats and alcohol compounds.   To address the quats we have a new Metrohm titrino apparatus with a series of electrodes specifically designed to determine the concentration of Quat compounds.  For complex mixtures we have LC-ELSD.  This allows us to separate several quats in a complex matrix providing specific concentrations.  Further specificity can be provided by confirmatory analysis by LC-MS or LC-QtoF.

The alcohol compounds can be analysed by Headspace GC-MS.  

We have three dedicated systems which are simply used for volatiles in formulations.  These are all Shimadzu Ultras which provide highly reproducible volatile analysis to meet SANCO and BPR requirements.