Synthesis of reference substances for highly polar metabolites of nitroaromatic compounds

Transformation processes of nitroaromatic compounds (NAC) lead to polar and highly hydrophilic metabolites. For the unequivocal identification of prop osed metabolites reference substances are needed. Since most of them are no t commercially available, their synthesis was done in our group. In many ca ses no satisfying synthesis schemes were found in the literature. In this c ommunication, we therefore describe the preparation, structural elucidation and separation of 17 compounds. Many of the newly synthesized analytes wer e found in various water samples from a former ammunition plant, (C) 1999 E lsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.