Interview 2：Vol.11 Issue1 2025 CONTENT : SHIMADZU JOURNAL

Interview with Dr. Ruth Marfil-Vega

Vol.11 Issue 1 / Interview 2“Challenges and requirements for environmental labs.”

We spoke with Dr. Ruth Marfil-Vega, Senior Market Manager for Environmental Solutions at Shimadzu Scientific Instruments Inc., USA. She provides insights into key questions regarding PFAS analysis for environmental laboratories. Dr. Marfil-Vega discusses the challenges faced by these laboratories as they rapidly adapt to address PFAS issues and comply with emerging regulatory requirements.

What are the main challenges your customers are facing right now regarding PFAS analysis?

Environmental laboratories work very close with water and wastewater treatment plants, consulting engineering firms, regulators and the public.The current challenges that everyone is facing right now, relate to three major topics: public concern—we all have easier access to information and lack of proper scientific communication is causing the public to voice more concerns about PFAS as well as to be more distress about them. The lack of resources to mitigate PFAS are becoming available slowly. Funding, building treatment facilities, personnel—everything must be in place while the scientific knowledge and the regulations are still being built around PFAS.
Regarding monitoring, labs are now facing the challenge to analyze new compounds with lower detection limits and in response to developing regulations,achieving shorter turnaround times, in addition to the other challenges that everyone is facing, like supply chain disruption and workforce replacement. Modern instruments for the analysis of PFAS like LC-MS/MS can generate the required data. However, the labs need time to secure the funding, install the instruments, and have the personnel ready to start generating PFAS data.

What new requirements and demands are environmental labs facing?

In April 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published the PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation for 6 specific PFAS: PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA,GenX and PFBS. Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) from this regulation allowed in tap water for the first five compounds listed ranges between 4 and 10 ng/L. For samples containing two or more of PFHxS, PFNA, GenX and PFBS a Hazard Index calculated based on their concentrations and factors established by EPA must be less than 1. This means that laboratories must be able to quantify lower concentrations than the MCLs; specifically, EPA has published Practical Quantitation Levels laboratories must meet between 3 and 5 ng/L, depending on the compound.Additionally, regulations for wastewater, sludge/biosolids and air emissions are also being developed at federal level in the United States. Some states have already published them. In general, the trend that

environmental labs are experiencing is that they need to report lower and lower concentrations at a faster rate, so decisions can be made for regulation and remediation.

How is Shimadzu supporting customers with their PFAS Analysis efforts?

In anticipation to the lower reporting limits, Shimadzu reevaluated the analysis of PFAS by methods EPA 537.1 and 533 with our LC-MS/MS. A common practice in environmental labs is to optimize methods to meet sensitivity,run times and QA requirements, but sometimes the instrument is not pushed to its maximum performance.With the lower reporting limits to respond to this regulation,the instrument setup has to be perfect, at its best.We have done the hard work for our customers. With our method package, everyone interested in compliance analysis will be ready to start the initial demonstration of capabilities, as the method will help them with that. We have similar resources for other methods, such as EPA 1633 and ASTM D8421 and D8535.

Learn more LC/MS/MS Method Package for PFAS in Drinking Water

Quantifying the presence of per and polyfluoroalkyl substances of PFAS efficiently in different types of environmental samples such as water, soil, animal tissue and so on might seem an overwhelming task. Shimadzu collaborates with scientists to ease the analytical workflows and with our ready-to-use vetted methods we have minimized the three most important bottlenecks in the analytical process.
First, you probably know that PFAS are everywhere.When sample contamination happens our LC-MS instrument can be quickly ruled out as the source. We have conducted extensive testing backed by our customers experience to demonstrate minimal to no contribution to PFAS concentration from our hardware. And when PFAS are introduced in the system, the use of a delay column makes sure that the PFAS background does not interfere with the analysis If highly concentrated sample is injected in the LC-MS/MS, the design of the autosampler and hardware enables minimal carry over and fast cleanup of the instrument by flashing it gas with solvents commonly used in the laboratory.

Second, the ever-growing list of PFAS analyzed as targets,surrogates and internal standards makes the data processing and review tedious and time consuming.However, with LabSolutions Insight you can streamline the process and focus on samples that need critical attention.You’ll get your results faster with LabSolutions Insight data review screens that can be customized and with the automated QA/QC flagging for EPA methods 537.1 and 533, as well as other methods for PFAS analysis.

And third, for those moments when you need technical support, you need to add a new PFAS target to your methods, or you just need to update reports with the latest QA parameters required by EPA. We’ll be there with you. Our team with combined decades of sustained experience in the analysis of PFAS. at Shimadzu and commercial laboratories, utilities research labs and more always provides unmatched support throughout the life of our LCMS.

If you could give one key piece of advice about PFAS analysis, what would it be?

There is a wealth of knowledge out there based on 15-20 years of work in research and routine testing laboratories to help you demystify PFAS analysis and get your lab up and running quickly. If you are new to PFAS or LC-MS/MS analysis, just reach out to your trusted resources, and you will be fine.

Thank you for the valuable information on PFAS analysis within the environmental analysis field. Could you also shed some light on the PFAS analysis in drinking water, as our next edition will be touching this topic?

Analysis of PFAS in drinking water, as well as other regulated and unregulated contaminants, is a topic that I am enthusiastic about. Before I joined Shimadzu I worked on that field for many years. The occurrence of PFAS in drinking water and how to treat them is a complex topic. From the testing perspective, as I mentioned in the previous question, we have a lot of knowledge collected over decades.And we can use that knowledge to help labs getting their labs up and running and in supporting the treatment and compliance with regulation. I’m looking forward to reading what you have prepared for the next edition!