Dangerous Tendency in the Presentation of GC-MS Identification Results

A dangerous tendency in the presentation of the results of the GC-MS identification of complex mixture components is discussed. This is an increasing number of publications where unacceptable results are presented. The main signs of them are the absence of a correspondence between the lists of identified compounds and the general principles of chromatographic retention, the indication of erroneous retention indices and chemical names, the unreliable chemical origin of analytes, etc. The main criteria for revealing such errors are the control of the chromatographic elution order of analytes and the absolute values of their retention indices.