Defense Date

12-15-2011

Graduation Date

2011

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Committee Chair

H. M. Skip Kingston

Committee Member

Stephanie J. Wetzel

Committee Member

Ellen S. Gawalt

Committee Member

Frederick Fochtman

Keywords

Glyphosate, Illicit drugs, Nerve agents, Solid phase extraction, TOF-MS

Abstract

The quantitative analysis of environmental and toxicological samples must be reliable, rapid, and in some cases field portable. In the United States, the employment of chemical weapons by rogue states and/or terrorist organizations is an ongoing concern. Nerve agent degradative products (methylphosphonic acid) as well as surrogates (glyphosate) must be detected at low quantities in various water matrices. Current methods involve tedious and time-consuming derivatizations for gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography in tandem with mass spectrometry. Two solid phase extraction (SPE) techniques for the analysis of glyphosate and methylphosphonic acid are described with the utilization of isotopically enriched analytes for quantitation using atmospheric pressure chemical ionization-quadrupole-time of flight-mass spectrometry (APCI-Q-TOF-MS) that does not require derivatization.

Format

PDF

Language

English

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