Investigations on the metabolism of alkyl polyglucosides and their determination in waste water by means of liquid chromatography-electrospray mass spectrometry

Alkyl polyglucosides (APGs) were analyzed by reversed-phase liquid chromato graphy coupled to mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization. Analytes were separated according to the chain length of the alkyl homologues, where as the separation of isomeric forms of the glucose moiety was achieved part ially. Depending on the structure of the glucose ring the alkyl monoglucosi des show a distinct affinity in terms of the formation of sodium and ammoni um adduct ions. Metabolism of isomer pure alkyl. monoglucosides was studied on a testfilter device to gather information about the degradation behavio r and to obtain eventually poorly degradable metabolites. In spite of unsuc cessful detection of any metabolites such as "polyglucoside alcanoic acids" , a degradation pathway was proposed including the cleavage of the glucosid ic bond as initial step. In addition, a method for the determination of APG s in municipal waste water effluent was developed using solid-phase extract ion on reversed-phase material. Recovery rates were in the range of 66 to 9 8% for three spiked alkyl monoglucosides and a quantitation limit of 0.2 mu g 1(-1) was achieved. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.