Abstract.A laser desorption (LD) coupled with resonanceenhanced multiphoton ionisation (REMPI) and time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) technique for non-volatile trace analysis compounds is presented. Essential features are: (a) an enhanced desorption yield due to the mixing of metal powder with the analyte in the sample preparation, (b) a high resolution, great sensitivity and low detection limit due to laser resonant ionisation and mass spectrometry detection. Application to resveratrol content in grapes demonstrated the capability of the analytical method with a sensitivity of 0.2 pg per single laser shot and a detection limit of 5 ppb. 42.62.Fi; 82.80.Ms One of the crucial problems in the development of new analytical methods, specially in the case of food samples, is the detection and identification of non-volatile organic compounds present at low concentration levels. Although mass spectrometry nowadays is widely used in the analysis of such compounds providing exact mass identification, the difficulty lies in their volatilisation into the gas phase prior to injection into the analyser. This first-step requirement is particularly a problem for thermally labile samples as they rapidly decompose upon heating.
PACS:To circumvent this difficulty a wide range of techniques have been developed for non-volatile analysis. Namely:, plasma desorption mass spectrometry (PDMS) [4] and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) [5]. In spite of the significant improvement and extended applicability of these methods they all suffer of the same limitation derived from the fact that both desorption and ionisation cannot be separately optimised, which, obviously, may be critical for many real applications. matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation (MALDI) technique is widely used for ion generation in many mass spectrometric analytical applications [6]. This is accomplished by mixing the analyte with an excess of cromophore matrix so as to improve both the desorption and ionisation processes, especially in the case of protein and polymer analysis. However, due to the complexity of the process, finding the best cromophore or matrix for a particular analyte is not always straightforward. A significant improvement using the MALDI technique was obtained by the so-called ultra fine metal plus liquid matrix method (UFP) for sample preparation [7]. This procedure increases the yield of high-mass ions and prolongs their production time.More recently, laser desorption methods have been developed in which volatilisation and ionisation steps are separated and so higher sample sensitivity is achieved. While all them have in common the laser desorption step they differ in their ionisation method. Within this category the laser multiphoton ionisation coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry, and in particular resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionisation (REMPI)-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) can be considered as one of the most powerful methods for the analysis of trace components in complex matrix [8][9][10][11][12][1...