Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry using silver nitrate as a post-column reagent
M. Takino et al., Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry using silver nitrate as a post-column reagent, J CHROMAT A, 928(1), 2001, pp. 53-61
Liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS)
using silver nitrate as a post-column reagent has been used for the determ
ination of 10 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in river water. In th
is method, after all the PAHs were separated by reversed-phase liquid chrom
atography, analytes formed complexes with silver cation by mixing with silv
er nitrate solution. The complexes then transfer the molecular ion, [M] (+)
, of the PAHs by charge transfer using in source collision-induced dissocia
tion. The positive ion ESI mass spectra of all PAHs tested in this study sh
owed [M](+) as the base peak and abundant [M+Ag](+), [2M+Ag](+) with very w
eak or no [2M+Ag](+). For the sample extraction, several solid-phase extrac
tion parameters using the blue-chitin column were optimized. The limits of
detection (S/N=3) of all PAHs for the spiked river water sample ranged from
0.001 to 0.03 ng/ml, and the detector responses were linear up to 1 ng/mI
(correlation coefficients greater than or equal to0.0998). Repeatability an
d reproducibility were in the range from 4.3 to 6.8% and from 6.2 to 9.5%,
respectively. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.