Evaluation of time-of-flight mass spectrometric detection for fast gas chromatography

Separations below 1 s of a mixture of organic compounds ranging from C-5 to C-8 have been performed to investigate the performance of a time-of-flight mass spectrometer in fast gas chromatography. The gaseous samples were foc ussed on a cold trap, and then injected after thermal desorption to obtain the required narrow input band-widths. Also, to obtain a very fast separati on, a short narrow bore column was used, operated at above-optimum inlet pr essures. With this system, it was possible to identify ten compounds within 500 ms, showing peak-widths (2.354 sigma) as narrow as 12 ms. The spectral acquisition rate used for these analyses was 500 Hz. The quality of the re corded spectra and the comparison with library spectra was very high. Decon volution algorithms offer the possibility of identifying overlapping peaks. It is shown that the spectral scan speed of the time-of-flight mass spectr ometer is high enough for very fast separations. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.