Efficiency of pretreatment of aqueous samples using a macroporous strong anion-exchange resin on the determination of nerve gas hydrolysis products by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry after tert.-butyldimethylsilylation

Abstract

A pretreatment procedure, using a macroporous strong anion-exchange resin (MSA) has been established for the determination of nerve gas hydrolysis products by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) after tert.-butyldimethylsilyl (TBDMS) derivatization. Aqueous solutions of methylphosphonic acid (MPA) and three alkyl methylphosphonic acids (AMPAs) (ethyl, isopropyl and pinacolyl methylphosphonic acid), were retained on the MSA column, and then quantitatively eluted with 0.1 M hydrochloric acid. The neutralized column eluate was dried, and MPA and AMPAs were derivatized with N-methyl- N-( tert.-butyldimethylsilyl)-trifluoroacetamide and analyzed by GC–MS. The column eluate was also analyzed in order to determine the exact hydrolysis product levels by capillary electrophoresis using borate and benzoate buffer (pH 6). The MSA pretreatment was examined for the clean-up of aqueous extracts of three types of soils and an aqueous solution containing 10% sucrose, which is regarded as model for a typical soft drink, after spiking with MPA and AMPAs. MPA and AMPAs were quantitatively recovered in the MSA eluate fraction from those samples, except for MPA from volcanic acid and alluvial soils. The yields of TBDMS derivatives were remarkably improved, compared with for which no pretreatment was used and also for those in which a strong cation-exchange resin was used. The achieved detection limits of MPA and AMPAs ranged from 0.12 to 0.18 μg/g of soil ( S/ N=3). The established MSA method was applied to the pretreatment of spiked sea water, two types of beverages, Pepsi Cola and canned coffee. Although the yields of TBDMS derivatives of MPA and AMPAs in sea water (in a range between 44 and 96%) and AMPAs in Pepsi Cola (in a range between 58 and 92%) were rather high, those for MPA in the Pepsi Cola (27%) and those for MPA and AMPAs in the canned coffee (in a range between 5 and 17%) were low.