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Case Study No. 1

A Race Against Time

Contamination can be a problematic and expensive issue at the best of times but for this major chemical importer, a contaminant in an imported formulation had the potential to wreak havoc on their business. Clients who had used the contaminated compound were complaining, legal action was threatened, and the race was on to discover exactly what the mystery contaminant might be.

Samples were sent to a number of testing labs in a desperate search for answers.

Last to receive the sample, ChemicalAnalysis was first of all the laboratories to identify the molecular structure of the contaminant, a remarkable achievement under pressure and directly attributable to a combination of collaborative teamwork, hard work against a very tight deadline and access to the right equipment, particularly Chemical Analysis' own NMR and LC-MS spectrometers. Others may have eventually identified the contaminant; our technology and ability to think outside the box enabled us to get there first.

But our involvement didn't stop there. The next, longer term, challenge was to determine how much contaminant was in each batch of the imported product, how many clients had been affected and to what extent. The problem was compounded by the fact that the contaminant was extremely powerful and operated at very low levels.

To identify the scale of the problem, the team at ChemicalAnalysis needed to create entirely new methodologies, a task which involved Chemical Analysis specialists from all disciplines at different stages of the project. The persistence, ingenuity and collaborative approach of our team paid off.

The timing was crucial. As well as discovering exactly what the contaminant was, ChemicalAnalysis played a vital role in developing and validating methods to determine the presence and persistence of the contaminant in the end product.

Armed with this information, we were then able to determine the exact extent of the problem amongst our own clients - and to protect ourselves from mischievous legal action and potentially damaging financial reparations.

Of course, not all cases of contamination are quite so dramatic. But when your profit performance is at risk, time is always of the essence. Speed, scientific rigour and imaginative problem solving are at the heart of every aspect of the ChemicalAnalysis service.