Investigating the fragmentation pathways of β-naphthol pigments using liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

By coupling the high sensitivity of high-resolution mass spectrometry with an efficient chromatographic separation optimized for the analysis of β-naphthol dyes and pigments, we provided a method for the qualitative recognition of this class of molecules in unknown formulations possibly used in different kinds of industrial and synthetic products.