AUTOMATED RECOGNITION OF TARGET COMPOUNDS AT LOW-LEVELS IN ENVIRONMENTAL-SAMPLES BY MEANS OF CAPILLARY GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY MASS-SPECTROMETRY WITH DEDICATED MASS-SPECTRAL LIBRARIES AND THE MACRO PROGRAM AUTARG .2. APPLICATION TO PESTICIDES IN GROUNDWATER SAMPLES

The use of the macro program AUTARG in the daily routine analysis of pesticides in groundwater was investigated. AUTARG Level 1 proved to be a valuable and reliable tool for the automated evaluation of CC-MS data. It is able to replace time-consuming manual evaluation by providing similar reliable results. AUTARG Level 2 is a powerful addition to Level 1, especially in trace level analysis, when looking for specific compounds using dedicated control files. It has been proved that the use of ion traces by Level 2 makes possible the detection of target compounds hidden in the chromatographic background. In our investigations, using an older CC-MS system, it has been shown that the limits of AUTARG are determined by the detection limits. Today, new GC-MS systems promise much lower detection limits. Using AUTARG for automated evaluation of scan chromatograms to analyse water samples according to the tolerances for drinking water of the European Community should present us with no problems.