title: Fragmentation energy index for universalization of fragmentation energy in ion trap mass spectrometers for the analysis of chemical weapon convention related chemicals by atmospheric pressure ionization-tandem mass spectrometry analysis.
abstract: The use of mass spectra generated at 70 eV in electron ionization (EI) as a universal standard for EI has helped in the generation of searchable library databases and had a profound influence on the analytical applications of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), similarly for liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), suggesting a novel method to normalize the collisional energy for the universalization of fragmentation energy for the analysis of Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC)-related chemicals by atmospheric pressure ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (API-MS(n)) using three-dimensional (3D) ion trap instruments. For normalizing fragmentation energy a "fragmentation energy index" (FEI) is proposed which is an arbitrary scale based on the fact of specific MS/MS fragmentation obtained at different collisional energies for the reference chemicals which are not CWC scheduled compounds. FEI 6 for the generation of an MS(n) library-searchable mass spectral database is recommended.
authors.affiliation: Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Laboratory, Heulweg 28-30, 2288GN, Rijiswijk, The Netherlands. meehirpalit@rediffmail.com
authors.forename: Meehir
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Palit
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mallard