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Impurity identification in thiamethoxam by high resolution mass spectrometry and computer assisted elucidation

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Abstract

Thiamethoxam (TMX) is a widely used neonicotinoid insecticide in pest control. Identification of structurally related impurities is very important during certified reference material development and pesticide registration, thus it needs to be carefully characterized. In this study, a combined strategy with liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry and computer assisted elucidation (SIRIUS) has been developed for the impurity elucidation in TMX material. MS and MS/MS spectra were used to score the impurity candidates by isotope score and fragment tree in SIRIUS. TMX, the main component, worked as an anchor for formula identification and structure elucidation of impurity. With this strategy, four impurities were identified, including two byproducts (TMX-OCH3 and TMX-Cl) and two metabolites (clothianidin and TMX-urea). Their fragmentation pathways were concluded, and mechanism of impurity formation was also proposed. This result showed successful application of combining human intelligence with machine learning in impurity identification from chemicals.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for financial support from the National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFC1604801).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Chemical Metrology and Applications on Nutrition and Health for State Market Regulation, Division of Metrology in Chemistry, National Institute of Metrology, No. 18 East Road of North 3rd Ring, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029, China

    Xianjiang Li, Bingxin Yang, Mengling Tu, Yan Zhang, Qinghe Zhang & Hongmei Li

  2. Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, College of Chemical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Bingxin Yang & Zhiyong Ma

  3. State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Wen Ma

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  1. Xianjiang Li
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  2. Bingxin Yang
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  5. Yan Zhang
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  7. Qinghe Zhang
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  8. Hongmei Li
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Contributions

XL: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, data curation, investigation, writing — original draft; BY, MT, and YZ: methodology and validation; WM, ZM, and QZ: writing — review and editing; HL: supervision, funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Xianjiang Li.

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Li, X., Yang, B., Ma, W. et al. Impurity identification in thiamethoxam by high resolution mass spectrometry and computer assisted elucidation. Anal Bioanal Chem 414, 7203–7210 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04272-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04272-4

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