The use of liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure ionization-mass spectrometry in water analysis - Part II: Obstacles

Despite its enormous potential for the determination of polar compounds in water, the application of liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-API-MS) has some characteristic obstacles. Qualitative analysis of completely unknown compounds suffers from the limited resolution of quadrupole and ion-trap MS and the limited fragmentation encountered in collision-induced dissociation. Quantitation of target analytes in complex samples may be impaired by matrix effects, especially when using electrospray ionization. This review summarizes characteristic problems when using LC-MS for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of organic compounds in water. It outlines how some of the problems may be reduced by improved instrumentation (e.g. tandem MS or time-of-flight-MS), improved chromatographic separation or by measures taken before or after the LC-MS analysis. Because of the complexity of environmental samples, more effort in quality assurance and control is required. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.