Niray Bhakta / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Kevin Schug
A commercially available dielectric barrier discharge ionization source was tested with a hyphenated supercritical fluid chromatography system and mass spectrometer. The compound mixture used in this investigation comprised caffeine, theobromine, theophylline, uracil, testosterone, and pyrene diluted in methanol. An injection at different concentrations was tested for linear response. Precision studies demonstrated the robustness and sensitivity of the ionization source across a concentration range of 10 to 1000 ng mL-1. Results from this experiment showed linear regression of 0.99 or greater for all analytes tested over the range tested with a relative standard deviation of less than 10% down to 10 ng mL-1 for all analytes except theobromine, which had a relative standard deviation of less than 10% down to 25 ng mL-1. Notably, this study marks the first instance of coupling a commercial dielectric barrier discharge source with SFC, showcasing its potential for analyzing poorly ionizing compounds with atmospheric pressure ionization, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). By combining SFC with the dielectric barrier discharge ionization source, this research opens promising avenues for the analysis of compounds that were previously challenging to characterize with standard techniques.
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