title: Quantitative analysis of polybrominated diphenyl ethers in earthworms and soil by gas chromatography coupled to ion-trap tandem mass spectrometry.
abstract: A method coupling gas chromatography to ion-trap tandem mass spectrometry (GC/ITMS) was developed and optimized for the analysis of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in soil and earthworms. It was found that the molecular ion [M]+ cluster provided better performance than the [M-2Br]+ as a collision-induced dissociation (CID) precursor ion for most congeners when considering sensitivity, specificity and potential interference from complicated matrices. Other parameters such as the resonant excitation voltage, 'q' value, were also optimized. To evaluate the suitability of the ITMS method, the optimized method was applied for the analysis of PBDEs in different samples including earthworms and soil, and its performance was compared with that of selected ion monitoring (SIM). It was found that ITMS offered higher sensitivity than SIM when analyzing real environmental samples.
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, Nankai University, Tianjin, China. zhuly@nankai.edu.cn
authors.forename: Lingyan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Baoling
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Xianwei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001681:Biological Assay / Q000379:methods*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004987:Ethers / Q000032:analysis; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D009835:Oligochaeta / Q000737:chemistry*; D011075:Polybrominated Biphenyls / Q000032:analysis*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D021241:Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004987:Ethers; D011075:Polybrominated Biphenyls; D012989:Soil Pollutants