analysis of biologically active compounds in water by ultraperformance liquid chromatography quadrupole timeofflight mass spectrometry a new method based on ultraperformance liquid chromatography uplc quadrupole timeofflight mass spectrometry qtofms was developed for the analysis of 32 biologically active compounds including antiinflammatories analgesics lipid regulators psychiatric drugs antiulcer agents antibiotics betablockers and phytoestrogens this new method allows chromatographic analysis in 14 min with instrumental detection limits from 2 to 84 pg and limits of quantification ranging from 01 to 15 ngl in tap water and from 2 to 300 ngl in wastewater the potential of liquid chromatography with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry lcqqqms was compared with that of uplcqtofms for the analysis of biologically active compounds in water samples lcqtof provides accurate mass information and a significantly higher mass resolution than quadrupole analyzers the available mass resolution of tof instruments diminishes the problem of isobaric interferences and helps the analysis of trace compounds in complex samples in this work uplcqtof chromatograms were recorded containing full scan spectral data the mz values of analytes were extracted from the total ion chromatogram tic and the accurate masses of the compounds were obtained in addition to increase the selectivity of tof measurements a narrow accurate mass interval 20 m mz units mass window was used to reconstruct the chromatographic traces however regarding quantitative performance in terms of dynamic range and limits of detection lods typical lods achieved by qqq instruments operating in multiplereaction monitoring mrm mode ranged from 1 to 50 ngl in wastewater and the linear response for qqq instruments generally covers three orders of magnitude this is an important advantage over tof instruments and one of the reasons why qqq instruments are widely used in quantitative environmental analysis