ABSTRACT

Mass spectrometry (MS) has come a long way since the record of the first mass spectra of a simple low-molecular weight substance by Thomson in 1912 [1]. Especially over the past decades, MS has been the subject of many developments. Particularly, the hyphenation of MS to capillary gas chromatography (GC) and liquid chromatography (LC) and also the development of novel ionization techniques caused extensive spreading of MS to food analysis. Also, the introduction of relatively inexpensive quadrupole and ion trap mass analyzers and, at the end of the last century, the rediscovery of time-of-flight mass analyzers allowed the use of this sophisticated instrumental technique in both research as well as routine applications [2-4].