A novel UV-MALDI-MS analytical approach for determination of halogenated phenyl-containing pesticides

The paper highlighted the capability of the UV-MALDI mass spectrometry, employing the Orbitrap analyzer for solid-state assay of halogenated phenyl–pesticides in mixtures. It is successfully applied for the analysis of eighteen (1)–(18) molecular objects of Fenarimol (1) type and their condensation products (P5)–(P12). The full method and technique validation is performed using the dried droplet sample preparation technique on embedded analytes in novel organic matrix crystals of N-(1H-benzoimidazol-2-yl)-guanidine (M4) and (E)-phenyl-2-pyridyl ketone oxime (M5), resulting to successful ionization of the analytes. Since the sampling technique in the UV-MALDI method is a key step in the overall process impacting significantly the metrology through the reproducibility of the data, the crystallization of M4, M5 and matrix–analyte in situ morphology of the samples is controlled by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The achieved promising metrology of LODs, of 0.46 ng kg−1 (1.53 ng kg−1 LOQs), is several orders of magnitude lower than the reported ecotoxicological effect values of studied pesticides. It is confirmed by the partial validated protocol based on ESI-MS. Inasmuch that LC-MS/MS is a method of choice for foodstuffs monitoring of organic contaminations, due to its routine quantitative analytical procedures, it is often characterized with the difficulties of the chromatographic separation of the closely structured analytes at a large scale of experimental conditions, complex multi-step sampling pretreatments, which inevitably alert the variables through the systematic and random errors. In this respect, notwithstanding the complex quantitative UV-MALDI-Orbitrap-MS procedure, conceptually different from the LC-MS/MS one, its high resolving power, capability for achieving meaningful analytical qualitative, quantitative and structural information of low-molecular weight analytes, its instrumental and sampling operation flexibility, applicable for a large scale of foodstuff matrices, and operating at the analyte concentrations of up to fg g−1 make UV-MALDI-Orbitrap-MS a perspective method of choice for an extensive implementation in the foodstuffs monitoring practice for control of the most essential task related to the assessment of the human health risks from environmental and foodstuff contaminations.

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► UV-MALDI mass spectrometry, employing Orbitrap analyzer for foodstuffs monitoring.
► Halogenated phenyl-containing pesticides of Fenarimol type.
► Matrix–analyte in situ crystallization morphology.
► Metrology: LOD 0.46 ng kg−1, several orders of magnitude lower than ecotoxicological effect values.