Unravelling the composition of very complex samples by comprehensive gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Cigarette smoke.
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.
Dallüge
Jens
J
Department of Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, Vrije Universiteit, de Boelelaan 1083, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands. acas@chem.vu.nl
van Stee
Leo L P
LL
Xu
Xiaobin
X
Williams
Jonathan
J
Beens
Jan
J
Vreuls
René J J
RJ
Brinkman
Udo A Th
UA
D001331:Automation; D002849:Chromatography, Gas / Q000379:methods*; D011336:Probability; D012906:Smoke / Q000032:analysis*; D014026:Nicotiana / Q000737:chemistry*
D012906:Smoke