MS - ACS Publications - American Chemical Society

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Book Review pubs.acs.org/jnp

Review of GC/MS: A Practical User’s Guide, 2nd Edition QMS/TOFMS) and quantitative metabolomics GC/MS approaches, are not discussed. Hopefully these new GC/MS techniques and expansion of existing topics could be included in the next edition of the book. Currently, there are only a handful of introductory books on the topic of GC/MS in the market. Overall, the book serves its purpose as a practical guide for a variety of students and scientists working in the public or private sectors of research and development. It is a good hands-on resource on GC/MS for organic, analytical, and environmental chemists on the use and maintenance of a GC/MS system. Moreover, I can see the appeal of this book to students with limited or no knowledge of the GC/MS system due to the approachable style of writing, which is clear and concise. In spite of a number of shortcomings, particularly regarding the lack of in-depth coverage of certain topics, I found this book to be highly informative and useful, and it should be made available in every university library.

GC/MS: A Practical User’s Guide, 2nd Edition. By M. C. McMaster (University of Missouri, St Louis, MO, USA). John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, USA. 2008. 192 pp. $97.95. 6.4 × 9.6 in. ISBN 978-0-470-10163-6 (cloth/cd).

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he second edition of GC/MS: A Practical User’s Guide by Marvin C. McMaster is an introductory book on the technical and practical aspects of using GC/MS. The chapters are well organized, and useful information, including a list of FAQs on GC/MS, a quick reference of GC/MS troubleshooting, and a list of sources of background contaminants, is provided in the appendices. The author also included many relevant illustrations that are well drawn and informative. There are a total of 16 chapters in this second edition, and they are presented in three sections. Part I, consisting of five chapters, provides a primer on GC/MS, which includes topics related to the components of the GC/MS, explanations of sample preparations, and a discussion of gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers. The various chapters in Part II focus on GC/MS optimization and include topics on chromatographic methods development, mass spectrometer setup and operation, data processing, and network interfaces. Part II ends with a useful chapter on GC/MS system maintenance and troubleshooting. Applicational aspects of GC/MS systems are presented in Part III, specifically on their usage in the environmental laboratory and in forensics, toxicology, and space science research. In addition, this last section contains chapters on relatively newer GC/MS systems and innovations in GC/MS, such as ion trap GC/MS, sequential mass spectrometry, magnetic sector systems, laser time-of-flight, and Fourier transform GC/MS systems. The accompanying CD contains five MS Word files on information that is already included in the book as appendices. In addition, all pictures and figures presented in the book are provided in a series of Microsoft Powerpoint slides. The style of writing is relatively easy to read, and information is presented in an easy-to-understand manner, with jargon and mathematical formulas kept to a minimum. Moreover, the book provides relevant and succinct information on the inner workings of GC/MS equipment. Because of his expertise on GC/MS, the author has included many useful tips on the proper usage and maintenance of the GC/MS machine. This book is therefore useful for anyone with little or no knowledge of GC/MS. As the book is only 192 pages, each chapter is relatively short and averages about 10 pages; in-depth coverage of any topic is therefore not expected. This is unfortunate, as the book could be made more useful by expanding the coverage of selected topics, such as structural interpretation of mass spectra and sample collection and preparation. An expanded discussion on these topics would be relevant and useful for beginning students. Additional new topics, such as database search procedures, could be included to enhance the usefulness of the book. Since the book was published in 2008, newer GC/ MS techniques, such as the hybrid two-dimensional GC interfaced to two or more mass spectrometers (e.g., GC© 2016 American Chemical Society and American Society of Pharmacognosy

Lik Tong Tan

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National Institute of Education, Singapore

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Notes

The author declares no competing financial interest.

Published: September 29, 2016 2763

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.6b00857 J. Nat. Prod. 2016, 79, 2763−2763