Uri Keshet (1), Tal Alon (1), Paulina Goldshlag (2) and Aviv Amirav (1)
1. School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2. Israel Plant Protection and Inspection Services, Beit Dagan, Israel.
3. Aviv Analytical LTD, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Introduction
Pesticide analysis in agricultural products is an application area of growing importance which is usually addressed by GC-MS and LC-MS. However, pesticide analysis is confronted by the dominance of matrix interference which severely restricts the achievable limits of detection. As a result, several methods were developed and used for the reduction of matrix interference and the most widely used is MS-MS. While in LC-MS, MS-MS is practically a must in view of absence of libraries and consistent fragments in the mass spectra, in GC-MS the use of full scan possesses a few advantages of unambiguous library identification and its applicability to unlimited number of GC-MS amenable pesticides, provides however that the problem of matrix interference can be properly addressed. In addition to MS-MS at least three other techniques can be used to reduce matrix interference while enabling the use of full scan namely: a) high resolution mass spectrometry; b) GC-MS with Cold EI in which the enhanced molecular ions suppress matrix interference as described in another article in this blog. c) GCxGC-MS with its improved GC separation that can be used for the reduction of matrix interference as described in a few papers with thermal modulation and as discussed in this article.
We developed Pulsed Flow Modulation (PFM) for obtaining GCxGC-MS with supersonic molecular beams (SMB) (also named Cold EI) based on a low cost single quadrupole mass analyzer and without any added cooling gas. For further information on the concept of Pulsed Flow Modulation GCxGC please read M. Poliak, M. Kochman and A. Amirav, "Pulsed Flow Modulation Comprehensive Two Dimensional Gas Chromatography" J. Chromatogr. A. 1186, 189-195 (2008) (also Israel patent number 176724 and USA patent number 7518103).
In PFM-GCxGC-MS with Cold EI, sample compounds which elute from the first GC column are temporarily stored in a fused silica transfer line and are pulsed periodically injected by ~25 ml/min He gas pulse into the second column. After the pulse, ~20 ml/min He develops the chromatography in the second column for a few seconds (typically 4s). PFM is simple to construct, does not require any added gas with Cold EI and the injection time can be tuned, hence PFM-GCxGC-MS with Cold EI is enabled with quadrupole MS. The increased PFM second GC column flow rate is seamlessly handled by the Cold EI nozzle vacuum chamber.
We combined PFM-GCxGC with the Aviv Analytical 5975-SMB GC-MS with Cold EI and analyzed with it twelve pesticides in two agricultural matrices. PFM-GCxGC-MS with Cold EI combines the improved separation of GCxGC with the features of Cold EI of enhanced molecular ions and isotope information for the provision of ultimate sample identification information. Unique to PFM-GCxGC-MS with Cold EI is that in contrast to thermal modulation with standard GC-MS the second dimension elution time does not suffer from any ion source peak tailing and/or second column saturation effects and thus it is ideally suitable for pesticide analysis in complex matrices.
Keep reading to find out how the Aviv Analytical 5975-SMB GC-MS with Cold EI enables effective pesticide analysis in agricultural matrices while using improved PFM-GCxGC separation for obtaining a major reduction of matrix interference by an average measured factor of 32. As a result, the road is open for PFM-GCxGC-MS with Cold EI to serve as an alternative to GC-MS-MS while enabling the use of full scan which is applicable to unlimited number of GC-MS amenable pesticides with improved library identification and the novel use of isotopomer ratios for pesticides identity confirmation
