S. Schachterle et al., ANALYSIS OF PESTICIDE-RESIDUES IN FOOD USING GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY TANDEM MASS-SPECTROMETRY WITH A BENCHTOP ION-TRAP MASS-SPECTROMETER, Journal of chromatography, 683(1), 1994, pp. 185-193
Recent developments on the Saturn GC-MS system offer enhanced capabili
ties for both the ion isolation and collision-induced dissociation ste
ps in GC-MS-MS. With these improvements, benchtop GC-MS-MS can improve
the detection limit of mass spectrometers for low-level target compou
nds in complex matrices. With this brief study of malathion, we demons
trate (I) excellent sensitivity, (2) wide dynamic range and (3) effect
ive elimination of chemical background. GC-MS-MS is compared to standa
rd GC-EI-MS and GC-CI-MS techniques for the analysis of malathion in o
range extract. GC-MS-MS is the most selective and sensitive technique,
virtually eliminating the background interference. Product ion mass s
pectra are invariant across the chromatographic peak and excellent lin
earity is observed over a range from 2.2 pg/mu l to 2.2 ng/mu l for ma
lathion. Detection limit by GC-MS-MS was estimated at 0.5 mu g/kg in t
he orange oil matrix (S/N = 5).