LC-MS/MS in Environmental Monitoring: The Instrument Company Perspective

Oral Presentation

Prepared by P. Winkler1, D. Kennedy2, B. Barrett3
1 - AB Sciex, 511 Creekside Court, Golden, CO, 80403, United States
2 - Phenomenex, 1583A Redford Drive, Palm Springs, CA, 92264, United States
3 - AB Sciex, 500 Old Connecticut Path, Framingham, MA, 01701, United States


Contact Information: [email protected]; 650-631-2132


ABSTRACT

When LC/MS was first introduced as an analytical technique, there was a fairly short list of compounds that were of interest to the environmental monitoring community. Since that time, LC/MS/MS has grown in acceptance with both laboratories and regulatory agencies. This has been concurrent with a large increase in the number and types of compounds that are currently of interest. To keep pace with the demands for better chromatographic performance, instrument stability and data quality, manufacturers of HPLC columns and mass spectrometers have made significant improvements to the available instrumentation. Some of these improvements include more efficient separations, reductions in solvent use and more sensitive and stable mass spectrometers. The result has been instruments that provide much better data - not only for lower levels of quantitation - but data that is far superior for the confirmation of analyte identity in complex matrices. Several examples of analyses of compounds of environmental interest will be shown that will demonstrate the current capabilities of LC/MS/MS instrumentation.