title: Analysis of "total toxaphene" and selected single congeners in biota by ion trap HRGC-EI-MS/MS using congener-optimized parent ion dissociations.
abstract: A method for the quantification of selected toxaphene congeners as well as "total toxaphene" was developed based on electron ionization (EI) tandem (MS/MS) ion trap mass spectrometry (MS) and a combination of fragment ion dissociations. Congeners were separated by high-resolution gas chromatography. Compared to conventional EI low-resolution MS, a 5-20-fold gain in sensitivity could be obtained for octa- or nonachlorinated compounds such as toxaphene #26 and #62 (according to Parlar nomenclature), allowing for their detection in the low picogram range in biota. In addition, response factors for important congeners such as #26, #32, #40/41, #42, #44, #50, and #62 deviated not more than a factor of 2, which is much less as compared to negative ion chemical ionization. This reduces the risk for systematic errors when determining total toxaphene on the basis of a limited number of reference compounds or the technical mixture. Furthermore, chlordanes and polychlorinated biphenyls did not interfere when applying the proposed MS/MS technique. The applicability of the method was tested by determining both total toxaphene and levels of selected congeners in six Arctic wildlife samples collected from Nunavut, Canada, as well as by repetitive analyses of the SRM 1588 certified reference material.
authors.affiliation: Organic Analytical Chemistry, University of Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sonja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Skopp
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oehme
authors.forename: Fong Lam
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: Faustinus
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yeboah
authors.forename: Hing Man
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild; D001110:Arctic Regions; D002170:Canada; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D007306:Insecticides / Q000032:analysis*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014018:Tissue Distribution; D014112:Toxaphene / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D007306:Insecticides; D014112:Toxaphene