Exact mass determination and computing of the elemental composition of chemical compounds in complex mixtures separated by glass capillary columns

Summary

A fraction of tobacco smoke condensate has been separated by GC-MS analysis on glass capillary columns. The capillary column is coupled directly to the mass spectrometer, omitting the carrier gas separator. A technique is described which allows the determination of the exact masses even on minor GC peaks which contain 1–2 ng of the chemical compound. The elemental composition can be computed from these exact masses. The determination of the exact masses is done with the aid of a data system. The error in the determination is less than 3 millimass units. The resolution of the double focussing mass spectrometer was 3000, cyclic scanning was done with 3 s/decade.