Study of high-resolution mass spectrometry technology as a replacement for tandem mass spectrometry in the field of quantitative pesticide residue analysis.

A validated LC/MS/MS-based multiresidue pesticide method was converted to an LC high-resolution MS single-stage Orbitrap platform. No changes regarding the cleanup and LC were made. Optimization of high-resolution MS-specific parameters and interface settings was kept at a minimum. The aim was to explore the capability of current Orbitrap technology to substitute for LC/MS/MS technology. The test included the quantitative performance (sensitivity, selectivity, linearity, accuracy, and precision) of some 240 analytes in three different matrixes. The LC/MS/MS instrumentation was operated at the edge of its technical limitations. A further extension of the number of analytes for LC/MS/MS would require the use of even narrower dwell times, significantly reducing sensitivity and reproducibility of measurement. No such limitations exist for the high-resolution technology. Similar performance was observed for both technologies. A current drawback of the high-resolution technology is the speed of data processing, which took significantly longer than for LC/MS/MS data due to the limited capabilities of the software.