[Identification of related substances in nicergoline by HPLC-MS].

To study the related substances in nicergoline, electrospray positive ionization high resolution TOF/MS was used for the determination of the accurate mass and elemental composition of the related substances. Triple quadrupoles tandem MS/MS was employed for the determination of the fragmentations of the parent ions. 16 related substances were detected and identified to be eight synthetic by-products and eight degradation products, by using impurity references matching, product mass spectra fragmentations elucidation, and verified further according to synthetic processes and stress testing results.