Rapid Quantitative Detection Of Toxic Diethylene Glycol In Toothpaste By Extractive Electrospray Ionization Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry

Using ammonium acetate methanol solution (10 mu mol/L) as the spray solvent, a novel method based on reactive extractive electrospray ionization (EESI) ion trap mass spectrometry was developed for the rapid determination of diethylene glycol (DEG) in toothpaste products, which are typical colloidal complex samples containing nano-scale particles in matrices. Under the optimized working conditions, DEG formed non-covalently bound complexes with NH4+, Na+ and K+ rather than the protonated molecules in the mass spectrum. About 0.1 g of the toothpaste products were required for direct sensitive analysis with EESI-MS, the whole procedure was completed within less than 2 min. Furthermore, the qualitative demonstration and quantitative analysis of DEG of the paste products was also done by the EESI-MS and EESI-MS/MS spectra. This method can be used for the rapid and selective determination of low-level DEG in toothpaste products, and it is a useful method for the rapid determination of low-level components in the viscous nano-materials.