Rapid determination of 82 kinds of volatile organic compounds in drinking water by purge-trapping-GC-MS

Objective To develop a method for rapid determination of 82 kinds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including chloroform and carbon tetrachloride in drinking water by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with the purge-traping technique (P&T-GC-MS).

Methods Drinking water was enriched by purge-traping technique, separated by DB-624 column, and then analyzed by GC-MS with scanning mode. Retention time and characteristic ions were adopted for qualitative analysis, and the internal standard method was conducted for quantitative analysis.

Results There were good linear relationships between 82 VOCs within 1.0-20.0 μg/L, with all R² values greater than 0.990 (except that the R² values for 1, 1-Dichloro-2-propanone was 0.988). The detection limit was 0.02-2.69 μg/L. The limit of quantification was 0.07-8.95 μg/L. The recovery rate was 72.3%-122.6%. The relative standard deviation was 0.29%-11.48%. The method was applied to determine 80 different water samples, and 8 trace VOCs were detected.

Conclusion The method is sensitive, accurate, and simple, and is suitable for simultaneous determination of 82 kinds of VOCs in drinking water.