Mass spectrometric confirmation criterion for product-ion spectra generated in flow-injection analysis - Environmental application

The suitability of a confirmation criterion recently recommended in the Net herlands for gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (GC-MS), was evaluated for flow-injection analysis (FIA) with atmospheric pressure c hemical ionisation MS-MS detection. The main feature of the criterion is th at the relative ion abundances of the four diagnostic ions are taken into a ccount. That is, for lower-intensity peaks, relative standard deviations ma y be higher; this is an advantage with chemical ionisation MS procedures. A series of triazines and their degradation products were used as test compo unds. Tap and surface water samples spiked at 0.33 mug/l were analysed by m eans of a selected reaction monitoring MS-MS procedure. For all analytes bu t hydroxysimazine (3 transitions), 4-9 transitions could be selected which invariably met the demands of the criterion. Some of the transitions used o riginate from the Cl-37 isotopic mass of the parent compounds which provide s additional structural information. Data for twenty surface water samples analysed by means of FIA-MS-MS as well as GC-MS and Liquid chromatography w ith diode array UV and MS-MS detection gave essentially the same results ov er the 0.1-1.0 mug/l range. In two samples desethylatrazine was reported by FIA-MS-MS whereas this compound was not detected by GC-MS. For a first tes t, this is a promising result. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights re served.