Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry Quantitation: Applications and Methods

Accurate quantitation of analytes in simple or complex matrices is imperative for detailed understandings of biological or synthetic systems and is also necessary to ensure consumer safety with regards to food, pharmaceutical formulations, and environmental hazards. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is capable of completing such tasks using a variety of quantitative methods. In Chapter 1, these methods are presented with regards to chemical warfare agent studies. External calibration, arguably the simplest of these techniques, quantifies an analyte by comparing the analyte's response in the sample matrix to the analyte's response in standard solutions. The success of this method hinges upon the consistency of the analyte's response between the blank and matrix samples. The work in Chapters 2 and 3 is an investigation into causes of inconsistency in an analyte's LC-MS response, namely matrix effects and nonspecific vial adsorption. Several case studies were performed highlighting the importance of incorporating vial adsorption studies into the method development stages of external calibration experiments