Office of Research and Development Publications

Direct aqueous injection of the fluoroacetate anion in potable water for analysis by liquid chromatography tandem mass-spectrometry

Citation:

Parry, E. AND S. Willison. Direct aqueous injection of the fluoroacetate anion in potable water for analysis by liquid chromatography tandem mass-spectrometry. Analytical Methods. RSC Publishing, Cambridge, Uk, , 8 pages, (2018).

Impact/Purpose:

Sodium fluoroacetate or Compound 1080 is a rodenticide registered in the United States for use in livestock protection collars. Sodium fluoroacetate is acutely toxic to humans and has potential to cause mass casualties if used to intentionally contaminate water systems. The present paper describes a direct aqueous injection (DAI) method for liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis of the fluoroacetate anion (FAA) in potable water. Sample preservation and filtration are the only pre-processing steps required. FAA is chromatographically separated on an octylsilane (C8) reversed phase column. FAA presence was confirmed by two fragment ions in the correct ratio, and use of a labeled standard allowed for quantitation by isotope dilution. FAA detection and quantitation limits were 0.4 μg/L and 2 μg/L, respectively. Four different drinking water utilities provided water samples from varying locations across the U.S. All the water samples were fortified with FAA and tested to evaluate analyte stability and the robustness of the method.

Description:

Journal Article describes the analysis of sodium fluoroacetate by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. Four different drinking waters contaminated with the target analyte were evaluated.