Abstract: Despite its enormous potential for the determination of polar compounds in water, the application of liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-API-MS) has some characteristic obstacles. Qualitative analysis of completely unknown compounds suffers from the limited resolution of quadrupole and ion-trap MS and the limited fragmentation encountered in collision-induced dissociation. Quantitation of target analytes in complex samples may be impaired by matrix effects, especially when using electrospray ionization. This review summarizes characteristic problems when using LC-MS for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of organic compounds in water. It outlines how some of the problems may be reduced by improved instrumentation (e.g. tandem MS or time-of-flight-MS), improved chromatographic separation or by measures taken before or after the LC-MS analysis. Because of the complexity of environmental samples, more effort in quality assurance and control is required. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Methods for the analysis of aromatic sulfonates, such as linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS) and (amino- and hydroxy-substituted) benzene and naphthalene sulfonates, from aqueous media are reviewed. All analytical steps including the extraction from water, clean-up from co-extracted substances, chromatographic separation and detection, and methods of identification of these compound classes are described and discussed. The techniques employed are solid-phase extraction, various modes of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), capillary electrophoresis, gas chromatography (GC), GC-mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, continuous-flow- and flow injection mass spectrometry, and spectroscopic methods. A remarkable gap becomes obvious between novel analytical methods developed with standard mixtures and those methods readily employable for environmental analysis. Finally, suggestions for future analytical developments are given.