p-Methoxyphenacyl Bromide as a Versatile Reagent for the Determination of Alkylphosphonic and Alkylmethylphosphonic Acids by High-Performance Liquid and Gas Chromatography with Mass Spectrometric Detection

A multipurpose reagent, p-methoxyphenacyl bromide, is proposed for the derivatization of polar products of the degradation (markers) of nerve agents, which allows their determination by high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometric detection or by gas chromatography in combination with high-resolution mass spectrometry. The reaction conditions for the derivatization of alkylphosphonic and alkylmethylphosphonic acids with this reagent were optimized, the features and general patterns of the formation of MS1 and MS2 spectra of derivates were found, and the conditions for their chromatographic separation by two independent methods were selected. The limits of detection reached are in the range from 0.02 to 0.2 ng/mL for high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometric detection and from 10 to 50 ng/mL for gas chromatography with tandem mass spectrometric detection.