N-Methyl bis(2-(alkyloxy-alkylphosphoryloxy)ethyl)amines, which are abbreviated as PNPs, are a series of new skeleton chemicals belonging to schedule 2.B.04 chemicals of Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). PNPs are important markers of chemical warfare agents because they are structurally relative to both nerve agents and N-mustards. In this study, fragmentation pathways of the most characteristic fragment ions in Q-TOF mass spectrometry were proposed based on the information from accurate mass and secondary fragmentations of product ions scan experiments. Results indicated that the base ion in LC/HRMS was the quasi-molecular ion [M+H]+. In LC-HRMS/MS, it was [M+H-CnH2n+1P(O)(OH)CmH2m+1O]+ fragment ion which was formed by losing an alkyloxy alkylphosphoryloxy group from the quasi-molecular ion. The diagnostic ion m/z84.0814 was identified as [C5H10N]+, which was the group of (CH2=CH)2N+(H)CH3. PNPs have two protonated centers. One is on the N atom, the other is on the O atom (P=O). O-n-propyl PNPs generally exhibited two fragmentation pathways. Firstly, the quasi-molecular ion [M+H]+ lost a propoxy alkylphosphoryloxy group to produce [R1P(OH+)(O-n-C3H7)OCH2CH2N(CH3)CH=CH2]+, which could be fragmented further to produce [C5H10N]+ ion. Secondly, [R1P(OH+)(O-n-C3H7) OCH=CH2]+ ions were produced from [M+H]+ and fragmented further to produce the abundant ions [R1P(OH+)(OH)OCH =CH2]. However, O-isopropyl PNPs characteristically produced weak fragment ions [M+H-C3H6]+, which were presumably formed via loss of CH3CH=CH2 from [M+H]+. Other PNPs showed similar fragmentation pathways as O-n-propyl PNPs. On the summarization of the MS fragmentation pathways of PNPs, LC-HRMS/MS quantitative and qualitative methods were developed and applied to analyze N-Methyl bis(2-(butoxy-methylphosphoryloxy)ethyl]amine in high background organic samples. The analytical results had successfully supported the sample preparation for the 33rd official proficiency test of Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
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