FAST CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS ION SPRAY MASS-SPECTROMETRIC DETERMINATION OF SULFONYLUREAS

This paper describes the use of a simple, laboratory-made capillary electrophoresis (CE) system equipped with relatively short (25-35 cm) capillaries that may be coupled to a pneumatically assisted electrospray (ion spray) interface for separations with on-line mass spectrometric (MS) detection. Sulfonylurea crop protection chemicals were used as model compounds to demonstrate the utility of the CE-MS system described. By using 35-cm fused-silica capillaries the CE-MS determination of an eight-component mixture of these compounds was accomplished within 5 min. In addition, on-line CE-MS under tandem mass spectrometric conditions (CE-MS-MS) was shown to give full-scan collision-induced mass spectra from 30-pmol levels of these compounds.