Rapid detection of sulfur mustard hydrolysis products based on microextraction by packed sorbent combined with nano‐electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

Abstract

Rationale Sulfur mustard is a blister agent prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the detection of its hydrolysis product, thiodiglycol (TDG), is an important indicator of blister agent contamination. Due to the poor volatility and low extraction efficiency of TDG, derivatization gas chromatography or liquid chromatography is required for conventional methods, and the detection process is cumbersome and time‐consuming. Methods A microextraction by packed sorbent (MEPS) device and a nano‐electrospray ionization (nano‐ESI) device were used. The central composite design (CCD) model of Response Surface Methodology was used to optimize the elution procedure; the variance analysis under equal repeated trials with multiple factors was used to quantitatively analyze the significance of the impact of related factors on the nano‐ESI efficiency. The MEPS‐nano‐ESI‐MS experimental conditions were optimized. Results A new detection method of sulfur mustard hydrolysis products in water based on MEPS‐nano‐ESI‐MS was established; the detection limit was 1 ng/mL and was linear between 5 ng/mL and 100 ng/mL (R2 = 0.9911) with a precision of ≤7.2%, and the recovery rate was 107.89% when the sample concentration was 40 ng/mL. Conclusions The experimental results showed that the proposed method could quickly detect the contaminated water samples without chromatographic separation and derivatization, thereby verifying the contamination of sulfur mustard on site.

Rapid identification of bear bile powder from other bile sources using chip‐based nano‐electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

“…Ambient ionization mass spectrometry (AIMS) is a new technology developed in 2004 which has provided approaches for sampling and ionization at atmospheric conditions that significantly decrease experimental complexity and time for sample analysis 33–36 . AIMS has been successfully applied to the distinction of drug adulteration 37–40 and identification analysis 41–44 . As an emerging technology in AIMS, chip‐based nano‐electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (nano‐ESI‐MS/MS) 45,46 inherits the advantages of the traditional ESI approach and utilizes a chip‐based platform to achieve long‐term stable spraying of small volume samples and zero carryover perfusion analysis of simple samples, significantly reducing analysis time and the use of organic reagents 47–49 …”

“…[33][34][35][36] AIMS has been successfully applied to the distinction of drug adulteration [37][38][39][40] and identification analysis. [41][42][43][44] As an emerging technology in AIMS, chip-based nano-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (nano-ESI-MS/MS) 45,46 inherits the advantages of the traditional ESI approach and utilizes a chip-based platform to achieve long-term stable spraying of small volume samples and zero carryover perfusion analysis of simple samples, significantly reducing analysis time and the use of organic reagents. [47][48][49] The objective of this work was to develop a new method to rapidly distinguish BBP from other sources of BP using a chip-based nano-ESI-MS technology.…”