Acrylamide determination in atmospheric particulate matter by high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry

A method has been developed for the determination of acrylamide at the picogram per cubic metre level in particulate-phase outdoor aerosol using high-performance liquid chromatography with triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometric detection. Acrylamide was identified by positive ion electrospray mass spectrometry using m/z 72.00/54.90 as monitoring ion transition. The limit of detection, defined as three times the standard deviation of the procedural blanks, was 0.4 pgm(-3) (173 pg absolute amount injected); the repeatability was 8% (evaluated as the relative standard deviation of five consecutive measurements on cleaned quartz fibre filters of acrylamide standard spikes) and the recovery was 52 +/- 4%. The accuracy of the method (evaluated as relative error) has been estimated to be -2%. This methodology was used to determine acrylamide concentrations in particulate-phase outdoor aerosol in the Venice Lagoon with concentrations ranging between 0.4 and 12.9 pgm(-3) with an average value of 3.1 pgm(-3).