GC-MS/MS analysis of benzo(a)pyrene by ion trap tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

The mass spectrometry using an ion trap tandem mass spectrometer has been investigated to find optimum conditions for the analysis of benzo(a)pyrene (3,4-benzpyrene). The applicability to a real soil sample was also investigated to verify the usefulness of the MS/MS (or collision induced dissociation, CID) analysis. The optimum CID condition was 1.5 and 0.45 for the RF excitation voltage and the q value, respectively. For comparison, CID and EI were applied to the analysis of a soil sample. CID analysis was more sensitive than EI analysis of the soil sample. The limit of detection (LOD) of benzo(a)pyrene was 3.18 ng mL-1 and 0.85 ng mL-1 for EI and MS/MS analysis, respectively. The precision at the soil sample for EI and CID showed relative standard deviations of 6.1% and 4.1%, respectively, and the concentrations were 168 μg kg-1 and 162 μg kg-1, respectively.