ANALYSIS OF CHLOROTRIAZINES AND THEIR DEGRADATION PRODUCTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL-SAMPLES BY SELECTING VARIOUS OPERATING MODES IN THERMOSPRAY HPLC/MS/MS

Positive ion (PI) and negative ion (NI) modes in thermospray HPLC/MS as well as the daughter ion and neutral loss modes in thermospray HPLC/MS/MS were applied for the characterization of atrazine, simazine, cyanazine, deethylatrazine, deisopropylatrazine, hydroxyatrazine, and chlorodiamino-s-triazine. PI mode gave always the [M + H]+ ion as base peak. Filament-on NI mode, which was 2-3 orders of magnitude less sensitive, gave [M + 2H].- ions except for cyanazine and hydroxyatrazine, which showed the [M - H]- ion. In the filament-off NI mode only cyanazine and hydroxyatrazine could be detected, both giving the [M - H]- signal. Detection limits by selected ion monitoring were below 400 pg injected on column. The collision-activated dissociation of the [M + H]+ ions was used to obtain very selective modes of operation with detection limits in the 0.4-4-ng range. Application to the characterization of photolysis and transformation products of several chlorotriazines is presented.