Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry in Environmental Analysis

Liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC-MS) technique enables analysis of emergent polar compounds without the need for derivatization reaction, while the introduction of high-resolution mass analyzers in hybrid configurations makes possible to elucidate chemical structure, also without reference standards. Over the past 10 years, besides target analysis, the coupling of LC to high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) has allowed screening of compounds expected to be in the environment, as well as nontarget screening of unknown compounds, such as transformation products (TPs) formed in the environment or during technical wastewater and sewage purification treatments. Nowadays, analytical chemists are trying to achieve real nontarget analysis of numerous unknowns in environmental samples for a comprehensive view of the true overall contamination present in samples, but it still remains a very challenging issue. The development of new software tools to extract relevant data, spectra libraries, and databases will be of great help to solve this issue, enhancing the success rate. This article represents the second edition of a previous manuscript by Careri,2000 which was updated to take into account the huge progress in MS instrumentation and related methodologies and also advances in environmental analytical chemistry. In this overview, among the environmental applications of LC-MS, current and innovative approaches for the analysis of selected classes of emerging pollutants, such as novel brominated flame retardants, nanomaterials, hormones and other endocrine disruptors, and pharmaceutical and personal care products in environmental samples are discussed.