Capillary microextraction for simultaneous analysis of multi-residual semivolatile organic compounds in water

Abstract

Capillary microextractor (CME) in combination with a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) was employed for the determination of trace priority hazardous substances in water. Three groups of semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs), i.e., chlorinated hydrocarbons, pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), were simultaneously determined. SVOCs were extracted from 7 mL of water samples on a 100 cm commercial gas chromatographic column (0.32 mm id × film thickness 0.25 μm, HP-5 capillary column) and eluted with only 3 μL of acetonitrile. The extractant was analyzed by GC-MS in the selected ion monitoring mode. The method showed good linearity over the concentration range 10 ng L⁻¹ to 3.0 mg L⁻¹ with correlation coefficients (r) greater than 0.99 and low limits of detection ranged from 10 ng L⁻¹ to 1.0 mg L⁻¹. High recovery (more than 80%) was obtained with relative standard deviation less than 10%. The method was successfully applied for trace level analyses of SVOCs in water samples.