| Abstract | This book is devoted to the use of mass spectrometry in quantitative measurements of amounts of target (known) chemical compounds present at trace levels in complex matrices, such as drugs and their metabolites in body fluids, pesticide residues in foodstuffs, contaminants in drinking water, etc. Such demanding measurements, defined as 1 part in 10^6 – 10^12, involve the use of a wide range of apparatus and of experimental procedures and methods of data evaluation, all of which must be utilized properly if reliable estimates of chemical concentrations and their associated uncertainties are to be obtained. While this is true of any chemical analysis, modern advances in trace-level analysis are critically dependent on developments in mass spectrometry. The approach adopted throughout the book is to emphasize the fundamentals underlying the scientific instruments and methodologies, illustrated by historically important developments and more recent innovations. However, discussions of the fundamentals are reinforced and related to the real-world by two chapters dedicated to method development and validation. Finally, how "the fundamental things apply" to real-world problems is illustrated in the final chapter devoted to representative examples from a wide range of application areas. This book does not cover important branches of mass spectrometry that provide accurate and precise quantitative measurements of relative concentrations, e.g. variations in isotopic ratios of an element by isotope ratio mass spectrometry and accelerator mass spectrometry. Rather, it is mainly concerned with determinations of absolute amount of substance, particularly for small organic molecules present at trace levels in complex matrices. |
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