Determination of bromate in drinking waters using low pressure liquid chromatography/ICP-MS

Abstract

This paper describes a user-friendly method for bromate determination that can be implemented easily on any inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer present in drinking water laboratories. The method uses low pressure liquid chromatography coupled to an ICP-quadrupole mass spectrometry instrument (ICP-QMS) or an ICP-sector field mass spectrometry instrument (ICP-SFMS) and is compared to that relying on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to an ICP-QMS instrument. The low pressure LC/ICP-MS method uses a low-pressure delivery six-port valve and a 5 cm anion exchange column, which allows a fully resolved separation of bromate in 13 min and achieves a limit of quantification of 0.2 μg bromate L⁻¹. The low pressure LC system is small and easy to install and its operation is fully integrated within the ICP-MS software. The method allows fit-for-purpose assessment of bromate, potentially present as a Br-containing disinfection by-product in drinking water, and meets all performance characteristic requirements set by the European Council for the monitoring of the quality of water intended for human consumption. A median bromate concentration of 0.5 μg L⁻¹ was obtained for 80 tap water samples collected during regulatory monitoring campaigns from 2009 until 2012 and covering different water supply areas in the Flemish region of Belgium.