Abstract
Since the introduction of atmospheric pressure ionisation (API) liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for routine analysis in the early 1990s, large improvements in terms of sensitivity and robustness of the MS instruments have been achieved and new mass analysers such as the linear ion traps and a Fourier transformation (FT) ion trap MS (Orbitrap) have been designed for LC-MS/MS analysis of small molecules [1]. Improvements of LC-MS instrumentation, the establishment of maximum levels for e.g. pesticides [2, 3], mycotoxins [4] and pharmaceuticals [5] and the definition of strict analytical quality assurance criteria (e.g. [6, 7]) have greatly contributed to the increasing popularity of LC-MS/MS in recent years. Most applications of LC-MS/MS to the analysis of residues and contaminants (e.g. in food and environmental samples) focus on the accurate quantification or semi-quantitative screening of target compounds and the confirmation of their identity. Recent publications clearly indicate a trend towards multi-target methods covering up to more than 100 compounds in a single chromatographic run as well as towards screening of (mostly highly polar) transformation products of known residues and contaminants with the major goal to study their metabolisation or degradation during numerous processes. This article presents a short introduction to the variety of mass analyser configurations and recent developments of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) instrumentation. Additionally, three key topics of LC-MS/MS—matrix effects, multi-analyte methods and confirmatory analysis— are briefly discussed.
Published Version
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