Investigations on the metabolism of alkyl polyglucosides and their determination in waste water by means of liquid chromatography-electrospray mass spectrometry.

Alkyl polyglucosides (APGs) were analyzed by reversed-phase liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization. Analytes were separated according to the chain length of the alkyl homologues, whereas the separation of isomeric forms of the glucose moiety was achieved partially. Depending on the structure of the glucose ring the alkyl monoglucosides show a distinct affinity in terms of the formation of sodium and ammonium adduct ions. Metabolism of isomer pure alkyl monoglucosides was studied on a testfilter device to gather information about the degradation behavior and to obtain eventually poorly degradable metabolites. In spite of unsuccessful detection of any metabolites such as "polyglucoside alcanoic acids", a degradation pathway was proposed including the cleavage of the glucosidic bond as initial step. In addition, a method for the determination of APGs in municipal waste water effluent was developed using solid-phase extraction on reversed-phase material. Recovery rates were in the range of 66 to 98% for three spiked alkyl monoglucosides and a quantitation limit of 0.2 microg l(-1) was achieved.