Ion-trap tandem mass spectrometry for the analysis of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans, and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls in food

9 pages, 4 tables, 3 figures.-- PMID: 18052095 [PubMed].-- Printed version published on Dec 26, 2007.
This paper reports on the applicability of gas chromatography coupled to ion-trap tandem mass spectrometry (GC/ITMS/MS) for the analysis of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), dibenzofurans (PCDFs), and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl-PCBs) in food. MS/MS parameters were selected to achieve the high sensitivity and selectivity required for food analysis. Good precision (RSD = 5–18% for PCDD/Fs and 6–14% for dl-PCBs) and low limits of detection for PCDD/Fs (0.1–0.93 pg/g of fat) and dl-PCBs (0.1–0.89 pg/g of fat) were obtained. A comparative study of the congener-specific determination using both GC/ITMS/MS and GC-high resolution mass spectrometry (GC/HRMS) was performed by analyzing several matrices such as milk, fish oil, chicken, pork, fish, eggs, and a chicken compound feed, at low pg/g levels. The results using GC/ITMS/MS were in good agreement with those obtained by GC/HRMS. Consequently, GC/ITMS/MS is proposed for the analysis of PCDD/Fs and dl-PCBs in food and feed samples.
We gratefully thank the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under Project CTM2006-00753/TECNO and EU Project DIFFERENCE (G6RD-CT-2001-00623) for financially supporting this study.