{
  "abstract": "Chemical coverage remains a major limitation in environmental non-target analysis (NTA), as conventional one-dimensional liquid chromatography (1D-LC) provides incomplete retention and separation across the broad physicochemical space encountered in complex samples. Here, we developed an online “head-cut” two-dimensional liquid chromatography–high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (2DLC–HRMS/MS) approach combining reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC), using a dual-trap system combining porous graphitic carbon and trimodal ion-exchange sorbents, to recover complementary regions of environmental chemical space within a single analysis. Trapping and modulation were first evaluated using a representative set of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), evidencing that the combined complementary trapping materials achieves quantitative transfer (40-100%) of chemically diverse polar and mobile analytes to HILIC. Feature-based NTA performance of the optimized 2DLC method was comparatively evaluated in river water and effluent wastewater and compared with the corresponding 1D-HILIC and 1D-RPLC. “Head-cut” 2DLC yielded approximately 2.3–2.6-fold more blank-corrected ESI(+) and ESI(−) features than either individual 1D separation. Beyond feature level coverage, DIA componentization demonstrated that precursor-associated MS/MS information increased and successfully distributed across both 2DLC chromatographic domains. Fragment Ambiguity Score (FAS) analysis of ESI(+) data further confirmed the occurrence of low-ambiguity, structurally informative fragments within the expanded separation space. These results demonstrate that wide-interaction recovery of the RPLC blind spot can extend measurable chemical space and access to fragmentation information relevant for structural annotation, supporting “head-cut” RPLC→HILIC–HRMS/MS as a promising strategy for increasing chemical coverage in environmental NTA.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS), University of Amsterdam, 1090 GD, Amsterdam, Netherlands",
    "Life Sciences & Chemistry",
    "Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS, 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba, QLD, Australia, 4102",
    "UvA Data Science Center",
    "University of Amsterdam"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Lapo Renai",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0738-7901"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Guylain. T. A. Cuiper"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Viktoriia Turkina"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Aleksandra Chojnacka"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        2,
        3,
        4
      ],
      "name": "Saer Samanipour"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Andrea F. G. Gargano"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a2ytf6jtsnbjh.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.26434/chemrxiv.15009781/v1",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "a2ytf6jtsnbjh",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15009781/v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "1607|Analytical Chemistry and Chromatography"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7215990825",
  "pdf_url": "https://chemrxiv.org/doi/pdf/10.26434/chemrxiv.15009781/v1",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-02",
  "publisher": "American Chemical Society (ACS)",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a2ytf6jtsnbjh.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:22Z",
      "native_id": "10.26434/chemrxiv.15009781",
      "source": "chemrxiv",
      "url": "https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15009781/v2"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "chemistry",
      "origin": "openalex:1607|Analytical Chemistry and Chromatography",
      "subfield": "physical"
    }
  ],
  "title": "“Head-cut” 2DLC–HRMS (RPLC → HILIC) enhancing non-targeted chemical coverage in environmental exposomics.",
  "title_text": "“Head-cut” 2DLC–HRMS (RPLC → HILIC) enhancing non-targeted chemical coverage in environmental exposomics.",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:24Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a2ytf6jtsnbjh",
  "venue": "ChemRxiv",
  "versions": []
}