Flash Chromatography and LC/QTOF-MS for the Determination of Cannabinoids in Hemp

Description:
Cannabinoid compounds exhibit very similar chemical structures differing on how the rings are cyclized from the parent structure (cannabigerol). Isomeric compounds presenting same exact masses are commonly detected in hemp samples. Sometimes, this makes them difficult to analyze and distinguish from one another. In this work, we combined flash chromatography separation, using normal phase and reversed phase, with on-line mass spectrometry. Afterwards, all fractions obtained were analyzed with liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry and individual compounds were confirmed via their accurate mass determination.
Our first goal was to develop a method to detect and identify all these compounds with liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry analysis (LC/Q-TOF-MS). This was accomplished with a slow gradient using acetonitrile and water with 0.1% formic acid and electrospray with positive and negative ionization. The second goal was the separation and fractionation of the different cannabinoids according to their polarity using a flash chromatography system coupled with a mass spectrometer detector (Isolera-Dalton). Thirdly, the goal was to identify the different compounds in each fraction by accurate mass using MS-MS fragmentation. Finally, the role of separation and accurate mass will be discussed as an important tool in cannabis research.
Commercial products containing CBD usually contain other cannabinoids that can be detected by the methodology developed in this work. Several examples will be shown for the identification of cannabinoids in hemp plants and hemp oils.

Speaker: Imma Ferrer Felis - University of Colorado
Dr. Imma Ferrer is an Associate Researcher at the University of Colorado in Boulder (USA) since 2008. She completed her Ph.D. on the development of LC-MS techniques for the detection of pesticides in the environment at the University of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) in 1999. Afterwards, she did a post-doc with the U.S. Geological Survey at the National Water Quality Laboratory in Denver for 3 years, where she worked on tandem mass spectrometric techniques. She then worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Almeria for 5 years, where her main focus was the identification of pesticides in food samples using time-of-flight techniques with accurate mass identification. She has more than 25 years experience on developing methods for emerging contaminants using LC-MS techniques. She is author of more than 130 peer review papers and chapters (h-index of 51) and has co-edited 4 books on LC-MS and GC-MS applications for the analysis of organic contaminants in the environment.