Applications of High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry in Determination of Chlorinated Paraffins

Abstract

Abstract Chlorinated paraffins (CPs) are a new class of persistent organic pollutants and have aroused great concern of many environmental scientists, due to their ubiquity in various environmental media and biotas. Given their relative low levels in environmental samples, CPs need to be enriched and cleaned up before instrumental analysis. CPs consist of thousands of congeners and isomers, thus posing grand challenges to eliminate the mass interference by homologues and other organohalogen compounds during instrumental examination. Fortunately, high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) owns the powerful ability to solve this key problem owing to its high mass resolution. This review introduces the methods of pretreatment and instrumental analysis of CPs-containing samples in the environment, mainly illustrating the application of gas chromatography and liquid chromatography coupled with HRMS (i.e. GC-HRMS and LC-HRMS). The existing issues and prospects of future study are also discussed.