Premium
A novel online approach to the determination of isotopic ratios for organically bound chlorine, bromine and sulphur
Author(s) -
Hitzfeld Kristina L.,
Gehre Matthias,
Richnow HansHermann
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
rapid communications in mass spectrometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.528
H-Index - 136
eISSN - 1097-0231
pISSN - 0951-4198
DOI - 10.1002/rcm.5203
Subject(s) - chemistry , bromine , chlorine , hydrogen bromide , sulfur , bromide , isotopes of chlorine , hydrogen chloride , mass spectrometry , hydrogen , gas chromatography , inorganic chemistry , isotope , halide , organic chemistry , chromatography , physics , quantum mechanics
A novel approach for the measurement of 37 Cl, 81 Br and 34 S in organic compounds containing chlorine, bromine, and sulphur is presented to overcome some of the major drawbacks of existing methods. Contemporary methods either require reference materials with the exact molecular compositions of the substances to be tested, or necessitate several laborious offline procedures prior to isotope analysis. In our online setup, organic compounds are separated by gas chromatography (GC) coupled to a high‐temperature reactor. Using hydrogen as a makeup gas, the reactor achieves quantitative conversion of chlorinated, brominated and sulphurated organic compounds into gaseous hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen bromide (HBr), and hydrogen sulphide (H 2 S), respectively. In this study, the GC interface was coupled to a quadrupole mass spectrometer operated in single‐ion mode. The ion traces of either H 35 Cl ( m/z 36) and H 37 Cl ( m/z 38), H 79 Br ( m/z 80) and H 81 Br ( m/z 82), or H 2 32 S ( m/z 34) and H 2 34 S ( m/z 36), were recorded to determine the isotopic ratios of chlorine, bromine, and sulphur isotopes. The conversion interface presented here provides a basis for a novel method for compound‐specific isotope analysis of halogenated and sulphur‐containing compounds. Rapid online measurements of organic chlorine‐, bromine‐ and sulphur‐containing mixtures will facilitate the isotopic analysis of compounds containing these elements, and broaden their usage in fields of environmental forensics employing isotopic concepts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.