Atmospheric pressure soft ionization for gas chromatography with dielectric barrier discharge ionization-mass spectrometry (GC-DBDI-MS)

Abstract

In this study, a gas chromatography (GC) system was interfaced to a high-resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometer by means of an active capillary plasma ionization source, based on dielectric barrier discharge ionization (DBDI). This allowed highly efficient soft ionization of gas-phase, chromatographically resolved compounds at ambient pressure. Several pesticides and illicit drugs were analyzed, and the limits of detections (LODs) were as low as 30 pg mL⁻¹ for the GC-DBDI-MS coupling (corresponding to 60 fg on-column sensitivity) and 30 fg mL⁻¹ for SPME-GC-DBDI-MS.