The examination and evaluation of the cleaning process of medical devices (e.g. of implants) after production continues to gain in significance. The methods being applied to date are either unspecific, allowing no determination of the origin of detected residual contaminants or too demanding technically and often restricted to evaluating small parts of a sample.
Vacuum-induced desorption of contaminants in combination with their mass-spectrometric examination allows examining entire samples without special steps of preparation, and also to identify the contaminants based on their specific mass distribution (signature). Reference spectra of production materials (Fingerprinting) allow the creation of a data base to identify these substances..
In addition, test samples (real products contaminated with specifically applied agents) can be produced for evaluating the technical cleaning of such production aids or cleaning agents.
In cooperation with Treams GmbH, a measurement method is being developed and offered which allows inspection of medical devices for residual contamination after production.