Multiphoton ionization processes were studied for three types of explosives using a line-tunable ultraviolet femtosecond laser. When peroxides such as triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD) were ionized through a nonresonant two-photon process, a molecular ion was dominantly observed by reducing the excess energy remaining in the ion. However, an aromatic nitro compound such as 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) produced large signals arising from molecular and fragment ions by resonant two-photon ionization. In addition, only fragment ions were produced from a nonaromatic nitro compound such as 1,3,5-trinitroperhydro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX), even when a resonant two-photon ionization process was employed, suggesting that a further reduction in excess energy would be necessary if a molecular ion were to be observed.

The allergenic compounds listed in the Cosmetics Directive by the Scientific Committee for Consumer Safety were analyzed by gas chromatography combined with multiphoton ionization mass spectrometry using a femtosecond laser emitting at 200 and 267 nm as the ionization source. The limits of detection were less than 100 pg/μL for all of the compounds, permitting them to be measured in actual samples that were simply prepared by a 100-fold dilution of the original sample. The ionization process was investigated for the 26 allergens, some of which had no absorption band, even in the far-UV region. As a result, nonresonant two-photon ionization was found to be the most sensitive and universal method for the trace analysis of these compounds, because of the short pulse width, i.e., a high peak power, of the femtosecond laser used. It should be noted that the excess energy can be reduced by using a laser emitting at longer wavelengths (267 nm) and that fragmentation can be suppressed, especially for a molecule that contains a long side chain. Three commercially available perfumes were measured, and more than 10 allergenic compounds were determined.

Gas chromatography/multiphoton ionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC/MPI/TOF-MS) was developed for trace analysis of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs). The use of an ultraviolet femtosecond laser (266 nm) allowed the sensitive, as well as selective, determination of PCDD/Fs with short singlet-excited-state lifetimes; the detection limit was 19 fg for 1,3,6,8-tetraCDF. Performance of the analytical instrument was examined and was ascertained to be satisfactory for all the criteria (K0311) prescribed by the Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS). The relative ionization efficiencies of (12)C-native PCDD/Fs against (13)C-labeled PCDD/Fs were 1.002 +/- 0.012. This suggests that (13)C-labeled isotopes can be used as internal standards with no intensity calibration and that the concentrations of PCDD/Fs can be determined to within an error of ca. 1%. In addition, multiphoton ionization provides negligible levels of background interference for the real soil samples even with curtailed pretreatment. The toxicity equivalence (TEQ) of the real sample was determined using GC/MPI/TOF-MS for performance evaluation against high-resolution gas chromatography/high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRGC/HRMS). The results suggest equivalent or even superior performance for GC/MPI/TOF-MS, due to low background interference and to the ability to check the reliability of the assignment from the intensity distribution of the isotope peaks.

It was confirmed that both quadrupole moments and polarizabilities of polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), which were calculated using Hartree-Fock theory and/or density functional theory, change systematically with the chlorination pattern governing molecular charge distribution. A mathematical model based on ligand-receptor binding and solute-solvent interaction is reported to explain the difference in toxicity between PCDFs. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that the difference in the potency of aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) and 7-ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase (EROD) inductions is mostly determined by the polarizabilities of PCDFs. This suggests that the interaction of a PCDF with the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) and its interaction with surrounding molecules in the cytosol are dispersion interactions rather than electrostatic interactions. Quadrupole moment, electron affinity, and absolute hardness do not appear to be significantly correlated with the differences in AHH and EROD activities among PCDFs. The entropy change of dissolution is important in predicting the AHH and EROD activities with good accuracy. A mathematical model is also used to study the differences in AhR binding between PCDFs.

No abstract