Determination of porphyrins and metalloporphyrins using liquid chromatography-diode array detection and mass spectrometry

A HPLC procedure has been optimized and successfully applied to porphyrins of environmental interest, such as etio and octaethylporphyrins and their V O and Ni compounds. The use of UV-Vis diode array allowed the detection of the analytes within the 5-15 ng/ml range. In order to achieve greater speci ficity and some structural information, the coupling of liquid chromatograp hy with mass spectrometry was investigated, and the particle beam interface conditions were optimized. Electron impact (EI) spectra, comparable to tho se reported in the literature were obtained. The entire procedure has been applied to a real marine sediment, previously spiked with porphyrins to res emble oil-contaminated samples. The results pointed out that the method is suitable for such levels of analytes (5-10 mug/ml), allowing their identifi cation and quantification with no need for purification steps. (C) 2001 Els evier Science B.V. All rights reserved.