Spectroscopy Focus
Recent Advances in the Methodology for Environmental and Food Matrix Analysis - a report on the 5th National Conference on Environmental Mass Spectrometry
The oral and poster presentations were chosen specifically to reflect and balance the interests and activities of the mass spectrometry community interested in environmental & food analysis and the commercial and service organisations that meet these needs.
This meeting, held on March 24th at the University of Chester, was an environmental mass spectrometry special interest group (EMSSIG) series event forming a part of the BMSS SIG meetings.
The main theme focussed on ‘Recent Advances in the Methodology for Environmental and Food Matrix Analysis’ and was linked to the Food and Nutrition SIG coordinated by Dr Simon Hird, thereby forming part of a conference week, during which three meetings were organised by Professor Chris Smith, which highlighted Nanotechnology and Food, and, Food Science and Technology.
In keeping with a trend in previous environmental sessions, now generalised at the BMSS annual meetings, several presentations highlighted the applications of mass
spectrometry in highly topical areas. The meeting had an international flavour with presenters and delegates from Europe and the Middle East.
Since the last meeting in 2008 the pressure on Analysts to monitor ever-increasing numbers of compounds which are suspected (or convicted) of causing health problems to humans and wildlife is increasing. Some of the compounds that were of academic interest in terms of methodology design are now subject to legislation in terms of specific maximum levels which may be tolerated never more so than in the Food and Flavours sector. New emerging environmentally pollutants (EEP) originate from a variety of sources thus making the task for the analyst more difficult. The practitioners, in tandem with the Instrument manufacturers have risen to meet the challenge and this meeting gave a fascinating overview of where we currently are and, having a vested interest in our environment and the food chain, in seeing progress on all fronts.
Over 50 delegates (some of whom are shown in Figure 1) attended the meeting. To complement the Plenary and Session oral presentations by eminent scientists, 11 companies formed a trade show, which ran through the day to give an overview of commercially available products and solutions.
Dr Davoli started by outlining the fact that in the last years the overall trends in analytical techniques for environmental analysis have been oriented towards high performance instrumentation capable of higher sensitivity and specificity. Mass spectrometry is one of the most important techniques for environmental analysis and the development of multistage and hybrid mass spectrometers (MS) increased the potential for highly complex environmental samples, but trace and ultra-trace analysis of environmental samples always pose difficulties due to sample complexity.
He further outlined the point that advanced techniques in environmental, pharmaceutical, forensic and other analytical fields are routinely used with multistage MS, mainly coupled to liquid chromatography, for targeted analysis. The use of triple quadrupoles coupled with HPLC, a very well established technique still brings new data about the environment, like pharmaceuticals and drug of abuse presence in surface water. As the MS complexity increases, specificity increases, bringing more and more sensitivity.
Sample preparation, always an extremely delicate step, can be reduced more and more, down to almost zero, for specific applications, such as food contamination. The orbitrap is a new mass analyser, which has been commercially available since 2005. The main feature of this mass analyser is the high resolution, and a relatively simple instrument operation and maintenance. The orbitrap offers large space charge capacity, high mass accuracy (1-5 ppm) and dynamic range greater than 103
thus allowing not
only sample preparation reduction, but also chromatography, even for environmental samples. Data was presented for direct identification of drugs of abuse in surface water.
Author Details:
Bernie Monaghan, Contributing Editor, Separation Sciences and Spectroscopy, International Labmate Ltd. Email:
bernie@intlabmate.com
Figure 1. Attending Delegates
To open the meeting, the plenary lecture was given by Dr Enrico Davoli, Mario Negri, Milan, Italy whose talk was entitled ‘A Review of Advanced MS Techniques in environmental studies: advantages and current limitations’.
As mass spectrometry is the only technique capable of compounds identification at trace levels, it is fundamental to have available software systems as an aid in data mining. Still outstanding, for everyday needs however, is a lack of automated data interpretation for high resolution and tandem instrumentation.
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