Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry to identify contaminants in water: an insight on environmental forensics.Ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QqTOF-MS) acquiring full scan MS data for quantification, and automatic data dependent information product ion spectra (IDA-MS/MS) without any predefinition of the ions by the user was checked for identifying organic contaminants in water samples.  The quantitative data obtained using UHPLC-QqTOF-MS were compared with those obtained using conventional LC-MS/MS with a triple quadrupole (QqQ).
UHPLC-QqTOF-MS
Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry to identify contaminants in water: an insight on environmental forensics.Ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QqTOF-MS) acquiring full scan MS data for quantification, and automatic data dependent information product ion spectra (IDA-MS/MS) without any predefinition of the ions by the user was checked for identifying organic contaminants in water samples. 
IDA-MS/MS
Furthermore, the combination of statistical data analysis using principal component analysis (PCA) followed by empirical formula calculation, on-line database searching and MS/MS fragment ion interpretation achieves not only the successful detection of unknown contaminants but also the selection of those relevant to different types of waters. 
PCA
Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry to identify contaminants in water: an insight on environmental forensics.Ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QqTOF-MS) acquiring full scan MS data for quantification, and automatic data dependent information product ion spectra (IDA-MS/MS) without any predefinition of the ions by the user was checked for identifying organic contaminants in water samples.  Unknown compounds, such as C₂₀H₃₄O₃, were identified in waste water showing the prospects of this technique.  The limit of detections ranged from 0.02 to 2 ng L(-1), with a validated limit of quantification of 2 ng L(-1) for water after solid-phase (SPE) isolation and concentration. 
SPE