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ELECTROSPRAY MASS SPECTROMETRY OF STABLE ASSOCIATION COMPLEXES FOR THE DETERMINATION OF DRINKING WATER CONTAMINANTS
Citation:
Magnuson*, M L. AND E T. Urbansky*. ELECTROSPRAY MASS SPECTROMETRY OF STABLE ASSOCIATION COMPLEXES FOR THE DETERMINATION OF DRINKING WATER CONTAMINANTS. Presented at 2004 NRMRL.WSWRD peer review, Cincinnati, OK, September 27 - 29, 2004.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
Two areas of focus in US EPA research for safe drinking water are disinfection by-products (DBPs) and Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) Compounds. DBPs are created during disinfection of drinking water. Future regulated compounds will be selected from the CCL. This presentation will utilize electrospray mass spectrometry of stable association complexes to determine some of these compounds, namely perchlorate, a CCL compound, and haloacetic acids, which are DBPs. The stable association complexes, formed between carefully selected complexing agents and the analyte, increase confidence in quantification. The correct choice of a selective complexing agent to form the complex with the analyte has two advantages in terms of increasing confidence in the quantification of the analyte. First, by choosing a complexing agent with sufficient mass, the observed mass can be selected to avoid the classical "chemical noise" region. Second, the complexation agent can be chosen to be selective for the analyte, so that confidence in the mass spectrometric identification is increased. Because flow injection analysis is used, analysis times are rapid. The electrospray mass spectrometry of association complexes increases the specificity of the results and maintains adequate sensitivity. As demonstrated, the same association complexation agent does not work for every analyte and must be carefully chosen for the analyte. Work is continuing in selecting appropriate agents for other environmental contaminants.