Development and validation of a portable membrane inlet mass spectrometry method for the measurement of monoaromatic hydrocarbons in water from a river canal

Abstract

This work reports the validation of an analytical method for the determination of monoaromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) using a portable membrane inlet mass spectrometer (MIMS) with a quadrupole mass analyser. In this study of BTX in river canal water that is used for irrigation, we present a detailed analytical method for rapid, self-contained, field-transportable screening and quantitative analysis for environmental monitoring. The validation study showed that in the analytical range of 10–250 μg L⁻¹, the correlation coefficient for all the analytes was greater than 0.99, the accuracy was in the range of 95.32–104.30%, the precision was less than 10%, and the selectivity was satisfactory. The LOD and LOQ values for benzene, toluene, and xylene were 4.88, 7.43, and 7.46 μg L⁻¹ and 16.27, 24.77, and 27.85 μg L⁻¹, respectively. The method was benchmarked against a lab-based GC-MS method, which confirmed its accuracy for the target compounds.