Mass Spectra and Retention Indexes for Polycyclic Aromatic Sulfur Heterocycles and Some Alkylated Analogs

Abstract

Polycyclic aromatic sulfur heterocycles (PASH) are ubiquitous in fossil fuels and pose risk to the environment due to their toxicity. Some PASH, resistant to degradation in the environment, are used to differentiate pollutant source and weathering. Although retention data exist for some PASH, few mass spectra are available, so misidentification often occurs between isomers in the same family. In this study, the retention behavior of 119 PASH on 14%-cyanopropyl/86%-polydimethylsiloxane (DB-1701ms), trifluoropropylmethylpolysiloxane (Rtx-200ms), 5%-phenyl/95%-dimethyl (Rxi-5ms), and 50%-diphenyl/50%-dimethyl (Rxi-17Sil-ms) are reported along with their mass spectra. This data is guiding on-going research aimed at identifying PASH in coal tar by multidimensional GC-GC/MS for compounds where standards are not available.

Key Words:

• Alkylated PASH
• environmental forensics
• fossil fuel samples
• GC retention index
• mass spectrometry

Acknowledgments

We thank Agilent Technologies, Gerstel GmbH, Gerstel USA, Inc., OI Analytical Corp., and Shimadzu Inc. for the instrumentation used to obtain the data in this article.Certain commercial equipment, instruments, or materials are identified in this article to specify adequately the experimental procedure. Such identification does not imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor does it imply that the materials or equipment identified are necessarily the best available for the purpose.