Selectivity optimization for the capillary gas chromatographic analysis of bacterial cellular fatty acids

Summary The importance of selectivity in the capillary gas chromatographic analysis of the cellular fatty acids of micro-organisms is underestimated. The analysis on apolar silicone phases can lead to erratic elucidation of the fatty acid structure. Qualitative errors have been detected in commercially available standards on which computer matching identification techniques are based. Using highly polar capillary columns of the cyanopropyl silicone type, the errors could be elucidated. The exact identification of the hydrolysis products of bacteria is a must for chemotaxonomic studies applying chromatographic techniques. The fatty acid methyl ester profiles can also contain other chemical components which are very important taxonomic markers. Fatty aldehydes, for example, are main components in someClostridium species. Fractionation techniques are described for selective enrichment of fatty aldehydes and hydroxy fatty acids.Dedicated to Prof. Dr. A Liberti on the occasion of his 70th birthday     

Chemische Ionisations-Massenspektrometrie von Organophosphors?ureinsecticiden mit verschiedenen Reaktantgasen

Zusammenfassung Chemische Ionisations-Massen-spektren (CI-MS) wurden mit einer Kopplung Dünnfilmcapillar-Gas-Chromatographie-Massenspektrometrie von 23 Organophosphorsäurepesticiden mit Isobutan als Reaktantgas gemessen. Alle Substanzen zeigten im CI-MS ein intensives Ion bei M + 1. Die CI-MS der einzelnen Substanzen werden diskutiert und mit Elektronenstoß-MS und CI-MS, die mit Methan oder Methanol als Reaktantgas erhalten wurden, verglichen. Die MS werden beim Übergang von Elektronenstoßionisation zu CI mit den Reaktantgasen Methan, Isobutan und Methanol in dieser Reihenfolge einfacher. Mit Methanol wird nur noch das M + 1-Ion gefunden. Für die praktische Rückstandsanalyse wird Isobutan als Reaktantgas vorgeschlagen.

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Chemical ionization mass spectrometry of organophosphorus pesticides with various reagent gases

Summary Chemical ionization mass spectra (CI-MS) of 23 organophosphorus pesticides with isobutane as reagent gas were obtained by a combination of open tubular column gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. All substances show intense M + 1 ions in the CI-MS. The CI-MS of the individual substances obtained with isobutane were discussed and compared with their electron impact mass spectra (EI-MS) and CI-MS obtained with methane or methanol as reagent gases. The spectra became simpler applying CI-MS instead of EI-MS. In CI-MS the extent of fragmentation decreased changing the reagent gas from methane to isobutane and methanol. With methanol, usually only the M + 1 ion was observed in the spectra. For routine residue analysis, isobutane as reagent gas is recommended.

     

Semi-micro solvent extraction as a rapid and efficient preconcentration technique for the determination of n-alkanes in oil-contaiminated water and soil samples by capillary gas chromatography

Summary In this study, a rapid and efficient semi-micro extraction procedure is presented for the extraction of some higher n-alkanes from water and soil samples. In the case of water samples n-hexane was used as the organic phase in a phase volume ratio (volume of aqueous phase/volume of organic phase) higher than 285, while in the case of soil samples, extraction with n-hexane was carried out in the presence of an excess of 2 M NaCl solution. The extraction rate from soil samples is very high and is better than Soxhlet extraction, comparable with supercritical fluid extraction. High preconcentration factor in water samples allows the limits of detection to be in the ng.mL⁻¹ level with the use of gas chromatographic analysis. Flame ionization detector was used for monitoring the analytes. The obtained recoveries of all studied compounds from both water and soil samples are higher than 90%. This method was successfully used to determine some n-alkanes in municipal wastewater and contaminated soil.     

Sediment Matrix Induced Response Enhancement in the Gas Chromatographic–Mass Spectrometric Quantification of Insecticides in Four Different Solvent Extracts from Ultrasonic and Soxhlet Extraction

The performance of ultrasonic and Soxhlet extraction using hexane, dichloromethane, ethylacetate/methyl-tert-butylether (1/3, v/v) and hexane/acetone (1/1, v/v) for the analysis of seventeen insecticides in sediments was evaluated. The contents of the extracts differed severely. The extracts obtained with ethylacetate/methyl-tert-butylether (1/3, v/v) and hexane/acetone (1/1, v/v) were dark yellow to green, whereas the extracts obtained with dichloromethane and hexane were light yellow and clear respectively. This is due to higher solubility of matrix compounds in ethylacetate/methyl-tert-butylether (1/3, v/v) and hexane/acetone (1/1, v/v). High loads of coextracted matrix compounds lead to matrix effects in the evaporation step of GC–MS measurements. This is known as matrix induced response enhancement effect. Matrix effects and recoveries were checked by analysis of spiked sediments. The suitable choice of extraction method in connection with an appropriate solvent separates the analytes from matrix compounds. Matrix effects are reduced and recoveries of spiked samples are improved.Revised: 6 January and 2 May 2005     

Observation of self-ion-molecule reactions during collisionally activated dissociation in an ion-trap mass spectrometer

This paper describes the formation of protonated molecules ([M + H]+) and adduct ions by self-ion-molecule reactions (SIMR) during collisionally activated decomposition (CAD) of methyne addition ions ([M + CH]+) produced from chemical ionization (CI) or SIMR in both an external and internal source ion-trap mass spectrometer (ITMS). The CAD results for the methyne addition ions of dopamine produced from both SIMR and dimethyl ether CI undertaken in the external and internal source ITMS were compared in order to prove the occurrence of SIMR during CAD processes. Compared with the external source ITMS, the internal source ITMS is much more easily applicable to this type of reaction owing to the large population of neutral analytes present in the trap.     

Determination of the diastereomers of vitamin K1

A method is described for the gas-chromatographic determination of the diastereomers of vitamin K₁ (phylloquinone) in the form of their dihydro dimethyl ethers. The reported method of derivatization and chromatographic analysis in conjunction with optical rotation measurements are useful approaches for characterization of vitamin K₁ samples with respect to their origin.     

Photophysical aspects of single-molecule detection by two-photon excitation with consideration of sequential pulsed illumination.

An important goal in single molecule fluorescence correlation spectroscopy is the theoretical simulation of the fluorescence signal stemming from individual molecules and its autocorrelation function. The simulation approaches developed up to now are based exclusively on continuous-wave (cw) illumination and consequently on cw-excitation. However, this approximation is no longer valid in the case of two-photon excitation, for which pulsed illumination is usually employed. We present a novel theoretical model for the simulation of the fluorescence signal of single molecules and its autocorrelation function with consideration of the time dependence of the excitation flux and thus of all illumination-dependent photoprocesses: two-photon excitation, induced emission and photobleaching. Further important characteristics of our approach are the consideration of the dependence of the photobleaching rate on illumination and the low intersystem-crossing rates of the studied coumarins. Moreover, using our approach, we can predict quantitatively the effect of the laser pulse width on the fluorescence signal of a molecule, that is, the contributions of the photobleaching and saturation effects, and thus we can calculate the optimal laser pulse width. The theoretical autocorrelation functions were fitted to the experimental data, and we could ascertain a good agreement between the resulting and the expected parameters. The most important parameter is the photobleaching constant sigma, the cross section of the transition Sn<--S1, which characterises the photostability of the molecules independent of the experimental conditions. Its value is 1.7 x 10(-23) cm2 for coumarin 153 and 5 x 10(-23) cm2 for coumarin 314.     

Raman spectroscopic studies on methane + tetrafluoromethane mixed-gas hydrate system

Raman spectra of intramolecular vibration mode for each guest species in the methane + tetrafluoromethane (CF₄) mixed-gas hydrate crystal have been measured at 291.1 K. Both of pure guest species generate the structure-I hydrate in the present pressure ranges. Isothermal phase-equilibrium curve exhibits two discontinuous points around the equilibrium methane compositions (water-free) in the gas phase of 0.3 and 0.8. At the above points, the Raman spectra of both guest molecules have been drastically changed. One of the most important findings is that the crystal of methane + tetrafluoromethane mixed-gas hydrate shows the structural phase-transition (from the structure-I to the structure-II and back to the structure-I) caused by composition changes.     

Selectivity enhancement of a metal-sensitive flame ionization detector for capillary gas chromatography

A novel modification of a hydrogen-atmosphere flamo ionization detector (HAFID) is presented which attenuates response to hydrocarbon compounds, significantly enhancing selectivity towards organometallic compounds by more than an order of magnitude. Chromatograms of an organometallic compound test mixture and regular leaded gasoline are presented to depict the specificity of the response.     

Comparison of methods to enhance flame ionization detector (FID) signals in gas chromatography

The performances of some numerical methods to improve the signal to noise ratio are compared and applied to enhance noisy signals obtained in gas chromatography with capillary columns and a flame Ionization detector. Several methods have been considered: cutoffs In the Fourier transform of the recorded signal; real time numerical filtering; theoretical model curve fitting; and the correlation of a chromatogram recorded from a pseudorandomly injected sample with the pseudorandom injection function. Numerical real time filtering is shown to be the most convenient method when the main periodic component of the noise has been determined by Fourier analysis.