Rapid
screening and identification of hazardous chemicals in complex
samples is of extreme importance for public safety and environmental
health studies. In this work, we report a new method for high-throughput,
sensitive, and rapid screening of low-mass hazardous compounds in
complex media without complicated sample preparation procedures. This
method is achieved based on size-selective enrichment on ordered mesoporous
carbon followed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization–time-of-flight
mass spectrometry analysis with graphene as a matrix. The ordered
mesoporous carbon CMK-8 can exclude interferences from large molecules
in complex samples (e.g., human serum, urine, and environmental water
samples) and efficiently enrich a wide variety of low-mass hazardous
compounds. The method can work at very low concentrations down to
part per trillion (ppt) levels, and it is much faster and more facile
than conventional methods. It was successfully applied to rapidly
screen and identify unknown toxic substances such as perfluorochemicals
in human serum samples from athletes and workers. Therefore, this
method not only can sensitively detect target compounds but also can
identify unknown hazardous compounds in complex media
