Rapid measurement of Phthalic acid Ester environmental hormones using ion mobility spectrometry

Abstract

Ion Mobility Spectroscopy (IMS) is commonly used for in-situ rapid online detection of trace substances at atmospheric pressure. By selecting four types of Phthalic acid Ester (PAE) compounds as the quantitative research objects, studying the effects of the temperature of the mobility tube, the temperature of the sample desorbed heater and the electric field strength of the mobility region on the detection, analysing the microscopic process of ion reaction after the addition of reagent molecules using the Rectilinear Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer (RIT-MS), the paper preliminary studies the product ions of phthalic acid ester, and establish a method for rapid measurement of phthalic acid ester-like environmental hormones with ion mobility spectrometry. With the addition of ammonia reagent molecules, the detection limits of dimethyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, dibutyl phthalate and butyl benzyl phthalate were 0.08 and 0.1, 0.09, 0.70 ng, respectively, and relative standard deviation RSD of 6 parallel measurements <6.3%. When used for the detection of phthalates in plastics, this method can quickly and easily screen products containing trace PAE-like contaminants.