Abstract
Thousands of organohalogen compounds, including hazardous chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs), were selectively and simultaneously detected and identified with simple, or no, purification from environmental sample extracts by using several advanced methods. The methods used were software extraction from two-dimensional gas chromatography–high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC–HRTofMS) data, measurement by negative chemical ionization with HRTofMS, and neutral loss scanning (NLS) with GC × GC–MS/MS. Global and selective detection of organochlorines and bromines in environmental samples such as sediments and fly ash was achieved by NLS using GC × GC–MS/MS (QQQ), with the expected losses of 35Cl and 79Br. We confirmed that negative chemical ionization was effective for sensitive and selective ionization of organohalogens, even using GC × GC–HRTofMS. The 2D total ion chromatograms obtained by using negative chemical ionization and selective extraction of organohalogens using original software from data measured by electron impact ionization were very similar; the software thus functioned well to extract organohalogens. Combining measurements made by using these different methods will help to detect organohalogens selectively and globally. However, to compare the data obtained by individual measurements, the retention times of the peaks on the 2D chromatograms need to match.
Highlights
We are surrounded by a variety of chemicals, and our lives are supported by huge numbers of man-made chemicals such as industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and agrochemicals
Whereas a huge number of peaks and bands of complex compounds were observed in the chromatogram obtained with conventional scanning, many peaks were isolated by neutral loss scanning (NLS)
It was possible to search for, and identify, compounds by using 2D mass chromatograms and mass profiles obtained from measurements of the same sample with GC×GC–highresolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HRTofMS) under the same conditions
Summary
We are surrounded by a variety of chemicals, and our lives are supported by huge numbers of man-made chemicals such as industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and agrochemicals. GC×GC technology has been used to analyze environmental contaminants with many congeners, such as PCBs (Hyotylainen et al 2002; Korytar et al 2002; Focant et al 2003, 2004; Kristenson et al 2005), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) (Focant et al 2003; Korytar et al 2005), and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (Hyotylainen et al 2002; Kallio and Hyotylainen 2007; Ochiai et al 2007; Fushimi et al 2012), as well as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDDs/Fs) (Korytar et al 2004; Danielsson et al 2005; Shunji et al 2008; de Vos et al 2011) Most of these studies have focused on the quantification of individual isomers, reports of non-target analysis by using GC×GC–MS have been increasing in recent years (Hilton 2007; Hilton et al 2010; Pena-Abaurrea et al 2014). Electron-capture negative ionization, which is a function of NCI reactions, is an effective ionization method for electrophilic molecules such as organohalogens and nitro compounds
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