Thermal dissociation atmospheric chemical ionization ion trap mass spectrometry with a miniature source for selective trace detection of dimethoate in fruit juices

Abstract

A miniature thermal dissociation atmospheric chemical ionization (TDCI) source, coupled with LTQ-MS, has been developed for rapid trace detection of pesticide residues such as dimethoate in highly viscous fruit juice samples. Instead of toxic organic solvents and the high electric field used in the conventional ionizations, an ionic liquid, a “green solvent”, was employed to directly generate reagent ions in the TDCI process, followed by the proton or charge transfer with the analytes prior to the LTQ instrument for mass analysis. Trace amounts of dimethoate in fresh orange juices have been quantitatively detected, without any sample pretreatment or aid of high-pressure gas. A low limit of detection (LOD = 8.76 × 10⁻¹¹ g mL⁻¹), acceptable relative standard deviation (RSD = 3.1–10.0%), and reasonable recoveries (91.2–102.8%) were achieved with this method for direct detection of dimethoate in highly viscous orange juice samples. The average analysis time for each single sample was less than 30 seconds. These experimental results showed that the miniature TDCI developed here is a powerful tool for the fast trace detection of pesticide residues in complex viscous fruit juices, with the advantage of high sensitivity, high speed, and high-throughput, ease of operation, and so on. Because of no chemical contamination and high voltage damage to the analytes and the environment, the technique has promising applications for online quality monitoring in the area of food safety.