Sébastien Sauvé, Ph.D.

Chemistry Department, Universite de Montreal

Ultrafast Environmental Monitoring of Emerging Contaminants using LDTD(APCI)-MS/MS

We have developed high throughput methods that use a laser diode thermal desorption (LDTD) – APCI interface to bypass liquid chromatography for the analysis of many emerging organic contaminants using tandem mass spectrometry, mainly steroid hormones, parabens, antiseptics, antibiotics and cyanotoxins.  The LDTD method uses heat generated from a laser diode to volatilize analytes and gaseous transfer for quantification directly into the APCI ionization chamber of the MS/MS with a sample turnover below 30 sec. We have so far adapted the LDTD method to the analysis of some pharmaceuticals, steroid hormones and parabens in water and milk (MDL in the range of 2 to 25 µg l-1 in liquids) but we have also had excellent results with solids such as contaminated soils, aquatic sediments and sewage sludge (MDL around 1 to 20 ng g-1 for solids). LDTD analyses allow some large resources savings, but have certain limitations, mainly a somewhat restricted number of analytes amenable to the LDTD/APCI method and lower performance for detection limits when compared to SPE-LC-MS/MS.