Characterization of alkyl‐ and aryl‐tins by means of electrospray mass spectrometry

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Abstract
The organotins, mainly the trialkyltins and triphenyltins, have a widespread application as fungicides, anti‐fouling coatings for porous and non‐porous surfaces, herbicides, insecticides, and generic biocides. Traditional environmental monitoring methods can only give limited speciation of the organometallics. The speciation of a wide variety of alkyl‐ and aryl‐tin isomers using liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry under positive‐ionization conditions is reported. Detection of the organotins was enhanced by the use of acetic acid in the methanol mobile phase. There were unexpected high‐mass ions with multiple tin‐isotope patterns present in many of the spectra. These high‐mass species were possibly attributable to tin polymers, whose presence has been observed by others using X‐ray methods.