Department of Analytical Chemistry, National Institute of Chemistry, Hajdrihova 19, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School, Jamova Cesta 39, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Department of Analytical Chemistry, National Institute of Chemistry, Hajdrihova 19, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Chemosphere. 2022 Sep;303(Pt 3):135313. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.135313. Epub 2022 Jun 10.
Phenols are hazardous, but yet ubiquitous in the environment, including in atmospheric aerosols due to combustion emissions. There, phenols are subjected to secondary transformations, producing even more toxic nitrophenolic air pollutants. However, primary simple phenols, i.e. those containing only hydroxyl, methyl and methoxy substituents are not easy to detect. Trace concentrations, semi-volatile character and poorly ionizable functional groups prevent us from their determination by the most common analytical techniques, such as gas and liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (GC/LC-MS). Here, we present a new derivatization method for MS/MS detection with positive ion electrospray ionization (+ESI-MS/MS) of simple phenols in atmospheric particulate matter (PM) extracts. The method is sensitive, selective, and robust, and requires no sample concentration step, which is critical due to the volatile character of the target analytes. After derivatization with dansyl chloride, phenol, catechol, cresols and guaiacol were detected in urban PM samples from Ljubljana, Slovenia. This method finally enables to study the abundance of primary phenols in atmospheric PM from different sources, which will improve understanding of secondary aerosol (trans)formation pathways and allow for more targeted mitigation strategies in respect to airborne phenolic pollutants.
酚类物质具有危害性，但在环境中却普遍存在，包括大气气溶胶中，因为燃烧排放物会导致其产生。在大气气溶胶中，酚类物质会发生二次转化，生成毒性更大的硝基酚类空气污染物。然而，原初的简单酚类物质，即那些只含有羟基、甲基和甲氧基取代基的酚类物质，并不容易被检测到。痕量浓度、半挥发性特征和不易电离的官能团，使得我们无法通过最常见的分析技术，如带有质谱检测的气相和液相色谱法（GC/LC-MS）对其进行检测。在这里，我们提出了一种新的衍生化方法，用于大气颗粒物（PM）提取物中简单酚类物质的正离子电喷雾电离（+ESI-MS/MS）检测。该方法具有灵敏度高、选择性好、稳健性强的特点，并且不需要样品浓缩步骤，这一点至关重要，因为目标分析物具有挥发性。在与丹磺酰氯衍生化后，我们在来自斯洛文尼亚卢布尔雅那的城市 PM 样品中检测到了苯酚、儿茶酚、甲酚和愈创木酚。该方法最终能够研究来自不同来源的大气 PM 中原始酚类物质的丰度，这将有助于我们深入了解二次气溶胶（转化）形成途径，并制定更有针对性的空气中酚类污染物减排策略。
