MS techniques for analyzing phenols, their metabolites and transformation products of environmental interest

This overview covers, in particular, chlorinated phenols, alkylphenols and steroidal estrogens that have caused great concern because of their adverse effects, diffusion and resistance to (bio)degradation. We first describe strategies for combining liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to recognize metabolites, providing evidence for the advantages and the limitations of the available techniques and predicting future trends in this field. We then review the present state of the art in the analysis of the above compounds. We pay particular attention to those LC-MS methods involving the analysis of target phenolic compounds and identification of their unknown products in the various environmental compartments.