Fingerprinting of the development of aerobic composting processes of agricultural wastes by on-line combination of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry

Liquid chromatography (LC) was employed in conjunction to mass spectrometry (MS) to develop a straightforward LC-MS procedure for monitoring the variation of functionalized nonpolar organic compounds during the development of an aerobic composting process of agricultural wastes. The LC separation was performed by a reversed-phase microbore HPLC octadecyl-silica column, which was eluted by a linear acetonitrile gradient in water. The reversed-phase HPLC column was connected on-line to a triploquadrupole mass spectrometer by an atmospheric pressure ionization interface.