Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatograpy with time-of-flight mass spectrometric detection applied to the determination of pesticides in food extracts

The separation provided by conventional gas chromatography (ID-GC) can be significantly enhanced by using comprehensive two-dimensional GC (GCXGC) instead. Combination with mass spectrometric detection is desirable for unambiguous confirmation of target compounds and the provisional identification of unknowns. A GCXGC system using a cryogenic modulator was coupled to a time-of-flight mass spectrometric (TOF MS) detector. With the determination of pesticides in vegetable extracts as an example, it was demonstrated that GCXGC improves the separation dramatically. All 58 pesticides of interest could be identified using their full-scan mass spectra, which was not possible when using 1D-GC-TOF MS. In addition, the high scan speed of the TOF MS allowed the deconvolution of compounds partly co-eluting in GCXGC. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.