Chemische Charakterisierung und Spurenanalytik
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High-resolution mass spectrometry, either combined with gas or liquid chromatography (GC/LC-HR-MS), is currently the most powerful analytical option for broad nontargeted small molecule analysis. To transform HR-MS raw data from metabolomics or environmental studies into chemically meaningful data, several computational steps are needed, including peak detection, deconvolution of these peaks into compounds and putative identification of compounds using databases. Each of these steps can cause problems and still requires methodological advancements. Computational compound annotation as one of the steps, however, has proven particularly challenging, mainly due to the chemical diversity of organic analytes. In addition, different annotation approaches are needed for the different platforms used in HR-MS screening. We recently introduced InterpretMSSpectrum as an annotation workflow for GC-HR-MS using atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI). InterpretMSSpectrum locates molecular ion, fragment and adduct peaks, calculates their most likely sum formula combination and graphically summarizes results as an annotated mass spectrum. As a complementary approach for LC-HR-MS, we presented findMAIN, which scores MS1 spectra based on explained intensity, mass accuracy and isotope charge agreement of adducts and related electrospray ionization (ESI) products to determine the neutral mass of unknown compounds. Both approaches were validated against large spectral libraries containing more than 600 compounds, for which correct annotation was achieved in over 80% of the cases. Based on the experiences from this validation, we here compare soft-ionization GC/LC-HR-MS regarding “annotatability” of unknown compounds from a computational perspective. As a main advantage for GC-HR-MS, the relatively uniform ionization behavior of commonly used trimethylsilyl (TMS) derivatives observed under APCI allowed differentiation of molecular ion peaks from in-source fragments based on relatively compact set of rules. By contrast, neutral mass inference in ESI required a more complex evaluation scheme, due to the higher diversity of ionization products observable in ESI. We demonstrate such differences by practical examples of both software packages applied to metabolomics studies and discuss the challenges connected to transferring the approaches to environmental screening.
Nontargeted high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) is widely used for small molecule screening in biotic or abiotic samples. However, HRMS approaches like metabolomics or environmental nontarget screening currently still lack confidence in chemical annotation, i.e. computational structure assignment to all measured mass signals. As a crucial step within the annotation pipeline, molecular weight inference (MWI) deduces a compound’s intact mass from diagnostic mass differences between MS1 peaks, allowing precise database queries in subsequent steps. As the common practice of considering all possible ionization products such as adducts, multimers, multiple charges etc. in MWI suffers from high false positive rates, we aimed at selecting candidate ionization products in a chemically sensitive way. Generally, electrospray ionization produces different types of adducts depending on chromatographic system and sample matrix, necessitating application-specific optimization for optimum MWI performance. To avoid, however, the tedious and potentially biased manual data curation connected to optimization, we established an R-based workflow for automating this task. The workflow consists of two parts. Part 1 creates an MS1 spectral library by performing peak detection, spectral deconvolution and target peak assignment based on density estimation. Part 2 analyzes ion relationships within the library and returns a list of detected ionization products ranked by their frequency. We applied the workflow to a commercial 634-compound library that was acquired for two chromatographic methods (reverse phase, RP; hydrophilic liquid interaction chromatographic, HILIC) and the two ESI modes (positive, negative). As expected, different frequency distributions of ionization products were found for the two chromatographies. Interestingly, however, some of the differences were expected in terms of solvent chemistries (e.g. [M+NH4]+ in ammonium formate-buffered HILIC) while others indicated more complex ion competition (e.g. abundant [M+K]+, [M+2K-H]+ in HILIC). This demonstrated the relevance of this empirical approach. We further show that MWI accuracy clearly benefitted from derived optimized adduct lists – by adding filters or weighting terms – and present FDR calculations supporting this observation. We conclude that chemistry-aware compound annotation based on the combination of high-throughput library acquisition and statistical analysis holds significant potential for further improvements in nontargeted small molecule HRMS.
Mass spectrometric Methods MC-ICP-MS and TIMS) are without doubt the working horse of stable isotope analysis. However, drawbacks of these methods include the high costs for instruments and their operation, experienced operators and elaborate chromatographic sample preparation which are time consuming.
Optical spectrometric methods are proposed as faster and low-cost alternative for the analysis of isotope ratios of selected elements by means of high-resolution continuum source molecular absorption spectrometry (HR-CS-MAS) and laser ablation molecular isotopic spectrometry (LAMIS). First, stable isotope amount compositions of boron (B) and magnesium (Mg) were determined based on the absorption spectra of in-situ generated heteronuclear diatomic molecules (MH or MX) in graphite furnace HR-CS-MAS. The use of a modular simultaneous echelle spectrograph (MOSES) helps to find the maximal isotope shift in the diatomic molecular spectra produced in a graphite furnace by using isotopic spike solutions. Isotopes of boron (10B and 11B) were studied via their hydrides for the electronic transition X 1Σ+ → A 1Π. The spectrum of a given sample is a linear combination of the 10BH molecule and its isotopologue 11BH. Therefore, the isotopic composition of samples can be calculated by a partial least square regression (PLS). For this, a spectral library was built by using samples and spikes with known isotope composition. Boron isotope ratios measured by HR-CS-MAS are identical with those measured by mass spectrometric methods at the 0.15 ‰ level. Similar results were obtained for a multiple isotope system like Mg (24Mg, 25Mg, and 26Mg), where isotope shifts of their isotopologues can be resolved in the MgF molecule for the electronic transition X 2Σ → A 2 Πi. Finally, the application of molecular spectrometry via emission by LAMIS is compared and discussed.
The climate and energy crisis are extreme challenges. One possible solution could be hydrogen technology. Safety is a big concern. Steel used for pipelines and storage is under permanent stress from low temperatures and high pressures. The content of different alloyed metals determines the performance of the steel. Nitrogen microwave inductively coupled atmosphere pressure plasma mass spectrometry (N2-MICAP-MS) is a promising method for trace metal analysis in steel. Nitrogen is cheap and can be generated on site. It has fewer interferences than argon. Additionally, MICAP-MS is very matrix tolerant, proving the matrix-matched calibration expendable. Safety in technology and chemistry is the mission of BAM. Providing reference methods and materials can create trust in future technologies like hydrogen.
Isotope Ratio Analysis
(2023)
Oxidative degradation processes of tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), a brominated flame retardant (BFR) in wood, plastics and electronics, were investigated by electrochemistry (EC) coupled online to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI/MS). Oxidative phase I and II metabolites production was achieved using an electrochemical flow-through cell equipped with a boron doped diamond electrode. Structural elucidation and prediction of oxidative metabolism pathways of TBBPA according to type II ipso-substitution were based on retention time, m/z ratio in negative mode and fragmentation pattern. Using the data obtained through high resolution MS analysis and the identification of single electron transfer (SET) as the initial step of a two-electron oxidation provided the necessary information to propose a mechanism for the electrochemical oxidation of TBBPA. Oxidation reactions involving aromatic hydroxylation and β-scission were the main degradation observed when studying the electrochemical behavior of TBBPA. Computational chemistry experiments using density functional theory (DFT) allowed to identify mono-hydroxylated reaction intermediate and dismissed the mechanism involving two concurrent hydroxylation. TBBPA oxidation products were compared to known metabolites of its biological and environmental degradation confirming the ability of electrochemistry to simulate β-scission reactions.