Advances in LC-MS/MS analysis of environmental and food samples.

Abstract

The application of advanced tandem and hybrid liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) instruments in the field of environmental analysis and food safety has enabled the determination of a broader range of compounds in environmental and food samples and thus permitted more comprehensive risk assessment. Impressive improvements in detection limits for organic contaminants, mostly brought about by advances in hyphenated LC–MS techniques, have improved target concentrations from the microgram to the nanogram or picogram per liter range. With the progress in analytical instrumentation, extraction techniques have also become more simple, fast, and inexpensive, enabling the enrichment of analytes of interest from complex environmental or food matrices. All these improvements led to the detection of many harmful compounds at the levels at which they have a biological effect in the environment, and several new or previously ignored and/or unrecognized contaminants have come under scrutiny. Currently one of the great challenges in food safety and environmental analysis is the analysis and assessment of risks associated with emerging contaminants, for example nanomaterials (organic and inorganic), perfluoroalkylated substances, personal-care products, and pharmaceuticals used in human and veterinary medicine including hormones, among others. The topical collection in this issue of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry provides an indication of current trends in the analysis of emerging contaminants in environmental and food samples. The articles presented here reveal some recent achievements in the analysis of fullerenes, pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs, artificial sweeteners, and perfluorinated compounds, giving examples of advantages, comparisons, and complementarities of state-of-the-art tandem and hybrid MS technology for the quantitative and qualitative determination of complex environmental and food samples. We would like to thank all the contributing authors for their time and effort in preparing this topical issue, as well as the referees for their constructive comments and the Editorial office for their cooperation. Published in the topical collection Advances in LC-MS/MS Analysis with guest editors Damia Barcelo and Mira Petrovic.