Analysis of Residual Solvents in Pharmaceuticals Using Headspace GC-FID/MS Detector Splitting System

Headspace gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID) is often used for residual solvent testing of pharmaceuticals, though the qualitative power of this method is not particularly high. Because gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC/MS) utilizes MS to perform qualitative analysis based on mass spectra, GC/MS can be used to estimate and identify individual peaks detected in the expected vicinity of a target solvent as well as other unknown peaks.
We describe an example of residual solvent test of a pharmaceutical using a detector splitting system that simultaneously obtains FID and MS data in a single measurement.