Determination of 19 volatile organic compounds in wastewater effluents from different treatments by purge and trap followed by gas-chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry

A rapid and simple methodology based on purge and trap with gas-chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry has been developed for the analysis of 19 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in wastewater (WW) effluents from four different treatments. The determination was carried out in the raw WW effluents, which were not submitted to any pre-treatment (e.g., filtration). A matrix effect study was also performed, concluding that solvent calibration was adequate to quantify VOCs in WW effluent samples containing a variety of suspended particulate matter. Adequate validation parameters were obtained with recovery values in the range 73–124% and precision values lower than 24%. Limits of quantification were established at 0.1 μg L-1 for all VOCs. The proposed method was applied to the analysis of WW samples, detecting chloroform and toluene at concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 4.80 μg L-1.