Identification of alkylpyrazines by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS)

Sihang Xu, Ramu Errabelli, Donald H. Feener, Katherine Noble, Athula B. Attygalle

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Pyrazines are an important group of natural products widely used as food additives and fragrants. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) is the most widely applied analytical technique for characterization of alkylpyrazines. However, mass spectra of many positional isomers of alkylpyrazines are very similar. Consequently, an unambiguous identification of each positional isomer by spectral interpretation or database search protocols is practically unfeasible. In fact, there are many misidentifications in literature. To identify alkylpyrazines, chemists often resort to gas chromatographic retention indices (RIs). Although there are many compilations of retention indices of alkylpyrazines, these databases are often incomplete and the values reported are sometimes inconsistent. Herein, we present retention indices of fifty-six alkylpyrazines recorded on DB-1, ZB-5MS, DB-624, and ZB-WAXplus stationary phases, and compare them with those available in the NIST-2017 MS-RI database. Furthermore, we demonstrate how RI values can be used, together with mass spectral interpretations, to identify certain alkylpyrazines unambiguously.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)149-161
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Chromatography A
Volume1589
DOIs
StatePublished - 29 Mar 2019

Keywords

  • Gas chromatography
  • Mass spectrometry
  • Pyrazines
  • Retention indices
  • Stationary phases

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Identification of alkylpyrazines by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS)'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this