The Use Of Ionic Liquid Based Salts In Gas Chromatography And Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on two uses for Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (RTILs). First, RTILs will be used to produce novel Gas Chromatographic (GC) stationary phases. The use of new phosphonium based RTIL GC columns for one-dimensional and two-dimensional GC will be discussed. The high thermal stability and unique orthogonality of these phases will be demonstrated. Additionally, the development of the first tricationic RTIL based GC stationary phases will be presented. The exceptional peak shape for polar compounds and thermal stability of these stationary phases are examined. Furthermore, the solvation properties of these novel solvents will be described via a linear solvation energy relationship.The second use for RTIL based salts presented herein, will be their use as ion-pairing agents for the complexation and successive detection of anions in the positive ion mode Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (ESI-MS). Dicationic, tricationic, and tetracationic salts will be used for the detection of mono-, di-, and tri-valent anions. The use of this method always results in the more sensitive detection of anions. The structural motifs of successful ion-pairing agents will be discussed. Furthermore, the use of these ion-pairing agents for Liquid Chromatography (LC) MS and Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) MS experiments will be presented. The penultimate chapter will discuss the mechanism(s) which allow this ion-pairing methodology to yield ultra-high sensitivity. Through this dissertation, a better understanding of the uses and capabilities of RTIL based materials in analytical chemistry will be attained.