Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of trifluoroacetyl derivatives of precursors of nitrogen and sulfur mustards for verification of chemical weapons convention.

Trifluoroacetylation reactions were optimized for gas chromatography-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analysis of precursors of nitrogen and sulfur mustards using newly developed N-trifluoroacetylbenzimidazole (TFABI) and known N-trifluoroacetylimidazole (TFAI) and N-trifluoroacetylbenzotriazole (TFABT) reagents. TFAI and TFABI gave the best results in terms of yields and reaction time. Trifluoroacetyl derivatives showed clean total ion chromatograms in GC-MS analysis than trimethylsilyl (TMS) derivatives. The negative ion chemical ionization analysis of these derivatives gave pseudo molecular weight information, with low limit of detection.