Simultaneous analysis of alkylphenol ethoxylates using ultra-high speed LC-MS/MS

NPEs and OPEs as standard APEs reagents were analyzed in terms of being widely used. Flow injection analysis (FIA) with MS scanning mode was carried out for determination of the ionization polarity of compounds and subsequently FIA for MRM transition optimization were performed. As a result of that, all NPEs and OPEs were detected the precursor ion, M+H, in positive polarity and same fragment ion of m/z 89 was similarly obtained as optimal MRM transition for NPEs which number of added ethylene oxide (EO) is >2, same fragment of m/z 89 for OPEs, EO >2. As a result of several examining LC mobile phase condition; the salt and the organic solvent, NPEs and OPEs were able to be retained on the above-mentioned condition, but it was hard to separate each compound completely in short LC run time. The dilution series of these compound standards were analyzed and all compounds were detected with excellent sensitivity (sub ppb level) and good linearity was obtained in the calibration curves of all. In addition, the quantitative analysis of the textile products was carried out and then some APEs could be detected. It turned out that this method is effective in real samples. Furthermore, in order to conduct screening analysis of how many carbon numbers of an alkyl group in APEs were detected, the method which performed the high-speed precursor ion scans (scan rate >3000u/sec) of m/z 89 for OPEs and NPEs detection with multiple collision energy settings was built. It is known that detected a precursor ion scan with high scanning speed using triple quadrupole mass spectrometer will occur mass shift to the high m/z side, however, in this analysis, the mass shift was not because of high-speed-correspond mass spectrometer.