Quantitative Determination of Volatile <i>N</i>-Nitrosamines in Meat Products Using Gas Chromatography Coupled to an Ion Mobility Spectrometer with an Ammonia Dopant

Herein, we develop a novel method using gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) with an ammonia dopant for the determination of volatile <i>N</i>-nitrosamines in meat products. The IMS system was implemented with Fourier deconvolution multiplexing to simultaneously improve the resolving power and sensitivity. The ammonia dopant mitigated the formation of <i>N</i>-nitrosamine dimer ions, suppressing the ionization of interferents and shifting the reactant peak from hydrated protons to hydrated ammonium ions. The ammonium adduct product ions of <i>N</i>-nitrosamines were confirmed using time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The instrument limits of detection and quantitation for nitrosamines were 0.78-1.79 and 2.60-5.82 ng/mL, respectively, with recoveries between 71.39% and 110.59% using a simple water distillation method. The developed method showed satisfactory performance when applied to the detection of nitrosamines in various meat products.