Ultra high performance liquid chromatography-time-of-flight high resolution mass spectrometry in the analysis of hexabromocyclododecane diastereomers: method development and comparative evaluation versus ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled to Orbitrap high resolution mass spectrometry and triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry.

An efficient ultra high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC)-time-of-flight high resolution mass spectrometry (TOF-HRMS) method was elaborated for the determination of hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) diastereomers in fish samples and compared against UHPLC-Orbitrap-HRMS and UHPLC-triple quadrupole (QqQ) tandem MS (MS/MS) techniques. The TOF-HRMS analyzer was operated at high resolution (>10000 full width at half maximum (FWHM)) with scanning the m/z range from 600 to 700, to achieve picogram quantitation limits. The effects of various operational parameters on the instrumental response were systematically investigated. Evaluation of the influence of sample clean-up procedure steps on sig…