Research concerning lignin has increased during the last years due to its renewability and ready availability in black liquor at pulp mills. Today, the kraft lignin found in black liquor is used as a fuel to gain energy in the recovery boiler at the mill. However, a new isolation concept, LignoBoost®, has enabled isolation of part of the lignin while allowing the use of black liquor as a fuel. This isolated lignin can be utilised as a fuel in, for example, thermal power stations or further upgraded to more value-added products. In this context, the most interesting value-added product is carbon fibre. The demand for carbon fibre has increased, but the biggest obstacle for a more extended use is the high production cost. About half of the production cost is related to the raw material. In this work, the possibility of using kraft lignin as a precursor for carbon fibre production has been investigated through fundamental studies. Kraft lignins originating from birch, Eucalyptus globulus, softwoods and softwoods from liner production have been studied. By separating the lignin while still in solution in the black liquor, unwanted large particles such as carbohydrates can easily be removed. After isolation according to the LignoBoost process and purification with the use of an ion-exchanger, the lignins have been both chemically and thermally characterised. Identification of the released compounds at different temperatures has been performed because only 40% of carbon relative to original lignin remains, down from theoretical 60% after thermal treatment up to 1000°C. The main released compounds were phenols, as revealed by pyrolysis-GC/MS. Additionally, a pre-oxidation was done in order to try to stabilise the lignins. It was shown that an oxidation prior to the thermal treatment increases the yield by more than 10% and that the main release of compounds takes place between 400°C and 600°C. Fractionated lignin is better qualified as raw material for carbon fibre production because it is purer and its softening temperature can be detected. Fractionated kraft lignins from all investigated wood sources have high possibilities to act as precursors for the manufacture of carbon fibre.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a technique with several advantages, such as high rapidity and easy operation as no sample specific standard or sample derivatization is required. Proton NMR is the most common NMR experiment, since hydrogen is “NMR active” and present in most organic compounds. Because of this, there is a high risk of overlapping signals in 1H-NMR spectra in samples containing multiple components, e.g. pharmaceutical preparations. Since Fluorine (19F) is “NMR active”, but not as common in organic molecules as hydrogen, peak overlapping is unlikely. A quantitative 19F-NMR method was therefore developed in this study.   Certain parameters (number of scans, relaxation delay, excitation frequency, pre-scan delay, spectral width & pulse angle) were examined during the method development, based on samples containing fludrocortisone acetate and 4,4´-difluorobenzophenone. For evaluation of the developed method, experiments were set up with different active pharmaceutical ingredients as well as pharmaceutical products. Good linearity and precision was obtained, and conclusions from the research experiments are that the developed method gives reliable purities compared to the reference method 1H-qNMR, and can therefore be used to achieve estimated assays on pharmaceutical raw materials. The method is also applicable on analysing registered pharmaceutical products as well as determining whether the strength of a suspected illegal drug is within the therapeutic range or not. Finally, the range of the method was determined to approximately 1-20 mg/mL, if examined on a 300 MHz NMR instrument.

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is the prevalent form of organic carbon in most aquatic environments. It is an ultra-complex mixture that plays a crucial role in global carbon cycling. Despite its importance it is still poorly understood due to its extreme heterogeneity and intricacy. Major advances in chemical characterization of DOM were possible with the introduction of high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). This technique, in combination with direct infusion (DI) as sample introduction, is the most powerful tool for the DOM analysis to date. A compelling alternative to DI is represented by upfront separation with liquid chromatography (LC); however, current techniques involve only offline LC-HRMS approaches, which exhibit important logistical drawbacks, making DOM analysis more challenging. The aim of the presented studies was to develop new methods able to enhance the analysis of the dissolved organic matter and enable a wider range of researchers to participate in the advancement of this field. In the first study, the application of the Orbitrap mass spectrometer for resolving complex DOM mixtures was investigated and the results were compared to the more established state-of-the-art technique, Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS). The Orbitrap was capable of excellent reproducibility and detection of the majority of ionizable organic molecules in typical aquatic mixtures. The main disadvantage of the technique is that fewer molecular formulas can be resolved and detected because of lower resolution and sensitivity. This means that many sulfur peaks and all phosphorous containing peaks are not determined. Despite this drawback, our results suggest that the Orbitrap is an appropriate technique for the investigation of very subtle biogeochemical processing of bulk DOM. The lower costs (purchase and maintenance) and wider availability of Orbitrap mass spectrometers allow a greater number of laboratories to participate in the characterization of DOM. In the second study, the first online method involving reverse phase chromatography and ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry for the analysis of DOM was developed. This method overcomes the disadvantages of typical offline approaches. It enhances enormously the amount of information achievable in a single run, maintaining high resolution data, reducing analysis time and potential contamination. The introduction of in silico fractionation makes the method extremely flexible, allowing an easy, fast, and detailed comparison of DOM samples from a variety of sources.

Ion pair chromatography has found many uses within analytical chemistry and understanding of the chromatographic process with an ion-pairing reagent have been studied since the 1970s. The adsorption of the Ion-pairing reagent to the stationary phase is understood to be important and many studies have been dedicated to looking at the adsorption isotherms of the earlier quaternary alkylammonium ions. Trialkylamines have been found to have some advantages over quaternary alkylammonium ions and are almost exclusively used in the analysis of oligonucleotides. Despite this there is a lack of studies looking at the adsorption isotherms of these molecules. A method for determining the adsorption isotherm of triethylamine and tributylamine was recently published by Haseeb et al. (2023) were the adsorption isotherm of tributylamine displayed and unusual behaviour. This raised the question of how the adsorption isotherm of the ion-pairing reagent relates to the retention of the analytes, which is the topic of this project. The retention factor of a set of carboxylic and sulfonic acids were determined at increasing concentration of triethylamine and tributylamine. The retention data was used to assess the validity of the electrostatic retention model by Ståhlberg and the Extended thermodynamic approach by Cecchi, as both these models can be used to relate the adsorption to the retention factor. Results from triethylamine were harder to interpret and tributylamine subsequently became the main focus of the project. The results from tributylamine showed a clear division between carboxylic and sulfonic acids in terms of selectivity and determined surface potential. This could not be explained by the electrostatic retention model and led to the adoption of the Cecchi retention model. The adsorption isotherm of tributylamine was determined by two methods and used to fit the Cecchi model to the retention data of three analytes. This could potentially be used to interpret the adsorption isotherms influence on the retention factor, although the attained relationship should be questioned due to uncertainty in the determined adsorption isotherms.

There currently exists no commercialized method for rapid sampling and analysis of trace tar ingas streams. Solid phase microextraction (SPME) with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) solidphase has been previously investigated as a possible candidate due to its solvent-free natureand reusability. This project set out to deliver a proof of concept study to test whether SPMEcan be sufficiently tuned to analyse trace tar content in syngas below the concentration of 0.1mg/Nm 3 . Due to complications that arose from the Covid-19 pandemic, it was unfeasible tocarry out the practical elements of the project. Instead a concept design for carrying out such astudy has been successfully developed. This design envisions a two-chamber setup able tosample syngas directly from a gasifier at 60 °C and 125 °C respectively and is illustrated in thetext. It utilizes commercially available solvent tubes to cross-check and verify the SPME results. / I nuläget finns det ingen kommersiell metod för att snabbt extrahera och analysera spår av tjärkomponenteri gasströmmar. Tidigare har solid phase microextraction (SPME) medpolydimetylsiloxan (PDMS) som fast fas undersökts som en möjlig kandidat då den ej kräverlösningsmedel och kan enkelt återanvändas. Detta projekt hade som mål att bevisa att SPMEkan anpassas tillräckligt känsligt för att analysera spår av tjära i syngas med en koncentration påmindre än 0,1 mg/Nm 3 . På grund av komplikationer som uppstod i samband med Covid-19pandemin var det inte möjligt att utföra den praktiska delen av projektet. Istället så har endesign tagits fram för ett koncept som beskriver hur man kan genomföra den praktiska delen.Designen beskriver en två-kammare lösning som kan användas för att ta prover från syngas somkommer direkt från en förgasare. Proverna tas vid temperaturer om 60 °C och 125 °C för attuppnå maximal känslighet. En uppsättning kommersiellt tillgängliga sorbentrör används för attkontrollera resultaten från SPME.

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Analytical surface sampling tools enable direct chemical studies of solid biological samples, including morphologically diverse tissue, and provide both fast chemical analysis with minimum sample preparation and information about molecular spatial distribution. Spatially resolved investigations of tissue sections could help to reveal pathological mechanisms at specific tissue locations. Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is a valuable method for direct tissue analysis that can give a full molecular profile of heterogeneous biological in a short period of time. However, MSI is not always capable of identifying isomeric and isobaric species, especially for low-weight metabolites. Moreover, the complex chemical matrix of biological samples significantly influences the performance of MSI, including introducing artefacts such as ion suppression. Therefore, separation by liquid chromatography or capillary electrophoresis prior mass spectrometric detection is beneficial to mitigate such artefacts and increase sensitivity. Recently, the new setup for surface sampling capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometry (SS-CE-MS) was presented that enables direct sampling from a tissue location followed by separation and mass spectrometric detection. This thesis is aimed to show the developments and improvements of SS-CE-MS along with applications of quantitative spatial metabolomics. Paper I demonstrates SS-CE-MS using a sheath liquid interface to the MS and its robustness and reproducibility both for the injection process and the connection to mass spectrometer. Analysis of small polar molecules, lipids, and proteins in both tissue and blood samples is described in addition to an increased throughput using multisegmented electrokinetic injection. In Paper II five quantitative approaches for SS-CE-MS were developed and evaluated. Off-line one-point calibration was found to be optimal for tissue analysis and further used for mapping metabolites, including isomeric species, in four regions of rat brain. Specifically, aromatic amino acids were found decreased in cortex and the isomers valine and leucine were more abundant than their isomers betaine and isoleucine, respectively. Overall, this thesis shows SS-CE-MS as promising new quantitative method for future applications to healthy and pathological tissue investigation.

<p>The actual signal recorded with an analytical instrument is not always a true reflection of the analysed sample. In this thesis a further insight of the atmospheric pressure ionisation processes electrospray (ESI) and atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation (APCI) has been endeavoured, to provide a deeper understanding of and ways to minimize this bias.</p><p>A response model for ESI has been modified and used to study the influence of solvent composition on the observed mass spectrometric signal. The response model divides the response into an analyte partitioning coefficient and an instrumental response factor. A number of experimental parameters influencing the response were investigated including spray position relative to the orifice, spray potential, nebulizer and curtain gas flow rates, ionic strength and organic content of the sprayed solution. The history of the generated droplets turned out to be of significant importance to both the partitioning coefficients and the instrumental response factor. Furthermore, it was found that the total ionic strength and not only the electrolyte concentration will influence the instrumental response factor.</p><p>In addition, based on the importance of hydrophobicity and electrophoretic mobility, a model was proposed for the ion distribution within the electrosprayed droplets.</p><p>The coupling of an electrochemical (EC) cell to a mass spectrometric (MS) system has been evaluated. The coupling of the EC cell to the MS was made to decouple the cell from the high voltage circuit of the ESI. The feasibility for analyte ionisation, sample pre-concentration and solvent exchange as well as studying redox reaction products was shown.</p>

<p>Electrospray ionisation (ESI) coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) is one of the most important detection techniques for chemical analysis of small drugs as well as large biomolecules in life science today. In this thesis, aspects on improved compatibility between liquid based separation systems and mass spectrometric detection were investigated regarding buffers, sample preparation and analysis of polar compounds as well as peptides and protein digests for enhanced ESI-MS performance. </p><p>Capillary electrophoresis (CE) coupled to ESI-MS detection, was evaluated using both a sheath flow interface and a sheathless design. The separation of peptides and small, polar compounds was optimised for both CE-ESI interfaces. The effect of sheath liquid composition was also studied with the aim to improve sensitivity in the ESI-MS detection. </p><p>Polar compounds were retained and separated by capillary ion-pair chromatography coupled to ESI-MS detection. Since commonly used ion-pairing reagents are detrimental to the ESI process they were effectively removed before the ionisation by the use of a trapping column after the separation. Alternatively, the ion-pairing reagents were exchanged to volatile constituents. </p><p>A method for peptide mapping by liquid chromatography (LC)-ESI-MS was developed for lactate dehydrogenase. The method was further enhanced to involve the proteolysis on-line to the LC-ESI-MS. No manual sample handling was then needed and the total analysis time decreased from 7 to 1.5 hours. The amount of information was also shown to increase in the on-line system.</p><p>Finally, the on-line concept was extended to an innovative interface for direct coupling of a pumped liquid flow to an electroosmotically driven flow. This provided a valve-free sample transfer between capillary LC and CE, aiming towards increased peak capacity per unit time for the analysis of complex peptide samples. </p>

<p>The analysis of pesticide residues in fruit, vegetables, rape seed and water has been improved using developments in sample handling and analytical techniques. The method development is associated with analytical difficulties, since pesticides currently used in agriculture represent a variety of chemical classes having very different physico chemical properties. The method development also encounters difficulties when many various commodity classes with different characteristics are studied. The main task in pesticide residue analysis has been to provide multi residue methods, and traditionally GC has been the main analytical technique.</p><p>In order to regulate the use of hazardous pesticides, the EU commission introduces strict maximum residue levels (MRL). The need for improved sample handling and detection techniques are, however, high due to handling of lower detection limits, complex matrices and the need of more efficient sample throughput. Of the new techniques introduced as alternative techniques to the traditional extraction techniques, pressurised fluid extraction (PFE) has shown to be a promising technique in analysis of pesticide residues in fatty foodstuffs.</p><p>In water analysis, large sample volumes are needed due to low MRLs. The solid phase extraction (SPE) technique allows a concentration of large sample volumes and simplifies the tedious laboratory work with traditional separation funnels. A new approach was to use non-polar solvents for the sample extraction from the earlier used polymeric column. Both these techniques provide low solvent consumption, short extraction times and ability to automate the manual steps. </p><p>An LC-MS/MS multi residue method was finally developed for pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables. The technique is robust and sensitive and allows a simultaneous determination of 57 pesticides and metabolites in one single analysis and without any clean-up steps. The sensitivity was improved to achieve the maximum residue limits needed by EU. Several multi step methods, which involve more costly analysis, has been replaced by this technique.</p>