title: Unravelling the composition of very complex samples by comprehensive gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Cigarette smoke.
abstract: The potential and current limitations of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC x GC-TOF-MS) for the analysis of very complex samples were studied with the separation of cigarette smoke as an example. Because of the large number of peaks in such a GC x GC chromatogram it was not possible to perform manual data processing. Instead, the GC-TOF-MS software was used to perform peak finding, deconvolution and library search in an automated fashion; this resulted in a peak table containing some 30000 peaks. Mass spectral match factors were used to evaluate the library search results. The additional use of retention indices and information from second-dimension retention times can substantially improve the identification. The combined separation power of the GC x GC-TOF-MS system and the deconvolution algorithm provide a system with a most impressive separation power.
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, Vrije Universiteit, de Boelelaan 1083, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands. acas@chem.vu.nl
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dallüge
authors.forename: Leo L P
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: van Stee
authors.forename: Xiaobin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Beens
authors.forename: René J J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Vreuls
authors.forename: Udo A Th
authors.initials: UA
authors.lastname: Brinkman
mesh_terms: D001331:Automation; D002849:Chromatography, Gas / Q000379:methods*; D011336:Probability; D012906:Smoke / Q000032:analysis*; D014026:Nicotiana / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012906:Smoke