Thermo Fisher Launches Groundbreaking Orbitrap Exploris EFOX Mass Detector to Transform Environmental and Food Safety Testing
Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, has announced a revolutionary leap in analytical technology with the introduction of the Thermo Scientific™ Orbitrap Exploris™ EFOX Mass Detector—the industry’s first high-resolution accurate mass (HRAM) Orbitrap system purpose-built for environmental and food safety laboratories. This landmark innovation is designed to help scientists tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges related to food and water contamination, including pollutants such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pesticides, and a wide range of organic xenobiotics.
The Orbitrap Exploris EFOX (Environmental and Food Organic Xenobiotics) system empowers laboratories to deliver richer, compliant data faster, ensuring that potential public health risks are identified and addressed with greater speed and precision. Unlike conventional high-resolution systems—often adapted from research platforms for routine testing—the EFOX has been engineered from the ground up to combine research-grade performance with day-to-day usability.
Purpose-Built for Everyday Precision
Traditional HRAM instruments are powerful but often too complex or resource-intensive for high-throughput food and environmental testing. Recognizing this gap, Thermo Fisher designed the Orbitrap Exploris EFOX to provide cutting-edge analytical performance in a streamlined, easy-to-use system. The detector brings the award-winning Orbitrap technology—long trusted in proteomics and pharmaceutical research—into routine testing environments, enabling labs to detect ultra-trace levels of PFAS and other pollutants with unmatched accuracy and consistency.
With intuitive operation and minimal setup requirements, laboratories can move from sample to result within minutes, maintaining both data quality and throughput. This breakthrough efficiency ensures that even smaller or resource-limited labs can conduct high-resolution testing that was once reserved for specialized research centers.
“As environmental and food safety laboratories face mounting pressure to deliver faster, more accurate results under tight budgets and stringent regulatory requirements, the Orbitrap Exploris EFOX significantly lightens the workload for PFAS, pesticide, and contaminant testing,” said Lidija Raicevic, Vice President and Environmental and Food Safety Lead at Thermo Fisher Scientific. “Offering an easy-to-use high-resolution mass detector helps ensure more labs can conduct full-scan, accurate mass HRAM data monitoring, expand local testing coverage, and accelerate quality controls to make our environment and food safer.”
Elevating Standards in Food and Environmental Analysis
The Orbitrap Exploris EFOX marks a new era in contamination analysis by capturing comprehensive, full-scan, high-resolution data from every sample. This all-encompassing data collection approach not only enhances real-time analysis but also enables retrospective data mining—allowing laboratories to revisit previously analyzed samples and screen for newly discovered contaminants without needing to reinject them.
This retrospective capability is particularly valuable in today’s fast-changing regulatory landscape, where new environmental and food safety standards are constantly emerging. Laboratories can stay ahead of these evolving requirements by leveraging existing data, reducing both time and operational costs.
Additionally, Thermo Fisher has equipped the system with preconfigured workflows for key environmental contaminants, helping laboratories achieve compliance faster and minimize method development efforts. This means scientists can move directly from installation to operation without months of optimization—dramatically improving productivity.
Seamless Integration and Simplified Workflows
The Orbitrap Exploris EFOX is designed for seamless integration and user accessibility, making it ideal for laboratories seeking to boost efficiency without sacrificing accuracy. The system is fully compatible with the Thermo Scientific™ Chromeleon™ Chromatography Data System (CDS), a powerful software platform that provides guided data acquisition, processing, and reporting.
Chromeleon CDS simplifies the entire workflow—from setup to final report—through an intuitive interface that reduces training needs, shortens data review cycles, and accelerates the delivery of critical insights. This guided experience is especially beneficial for labs handling large sample volumes or operating under tight reporting deadlines.
The system also pairs effortlessly with the Thermo Scientific™ Vanquish™ dual-channel UHPLC system, offering unmatched robustness, flexibility, and reliability. This combination enhances chromatographic performance and ensures consistent data integrity across a broad range of sample types.
Together, these integrated components create a comprehensive analytical ecosystem that allows laboratories to maintain consistent performance, reduce downtime, and respond rapidly to contamination events—all while meeting stringent compliance and traceability standards.
Supporting Broader Analytical Workflows
In addition to launching the Orbitrap Exploris EFOX, Thermo Fisher continues to expand its portfolio of solutions designed for environmental and food analysis. The company has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting triple quadrupole mass spectrometry workflows with the introduction of the Thermo Scientific™ TSQ Altis™ Plus EFOX MS—a specialized edition of the renowned TSQ Altis Plus system optimized for environmental and food applications.
This complementary system provides targeted quantification capabilities ideal for regulatory testing and high-throughput screening, offering laboratories greater flexibility in selecting the right tools for their analytical needs. Whether laboratories require high-resolution full-scan capabilities for broad contaminant discovery or targeted precision quantification for compliance testing, Thermo Fisher’s EFOX product family delivers the full spectrum of performance.
Empowering Safer, Smarter Testing Worldwide
The launch of the Orbitrap Exploris EFOX underscores Thermo Fisher Scientific’s ongoing mission to enable customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer. As contamination risks continue to evolve, so too must the technologies that detect and mitigate them. The EFOX’s combination of high-resolution performance, intuitive operation, and built-in compliance support empowers laboratories around the globe to produce accurate, actionable data faster than ever before.
By making advanced Orbitrap technology accessible to routine testing facilities, Thermo Fisher is helping laboratories expand their analytical reach, accelerate regulatory responsiveness, and improve global monitoring of pollutants that threaten ecosystems and human health.
From identifying trace levels of PFAS in drinking water to ensuring pesticide-free food supplies, the Orbitrap Exploris EFOX represents a transformative step toward more proactive and data-driven safety standards.
Thermo Fisher Scientific’s introduction of the Orbitrap Exploris EFOX Mass Detector marks a pivotal advancement in environmental and food testing. By combining world-class HRAM performance with user-friendly operation, integrated software, and tailored workflows, the EFOX bridges the gap between research innovation and real-world application.
With this system, laboratories can now detect, quantify, and analyze contaminants faster, more accurately, and more efficiently—strengthening global efforts to ensure the safety of our food, water, and environment for generations to come.
