Simple and fast determination of perfluorinated compounds in Taihu Lake by SPE-UHPLC–MS/MS

Abstract A simple and fast analytical method for determination of eleven Polyfluorinated Compounds (PFCs) in source water was developed in the present work. The water sample was prepared without filtered through microfiltration membrane and 500 mL of source water was enriched by the solid phase extraction (SPE). The targent compounds were analyzed by ultra high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS). The optimized analytical method was validated in terms of recovery, precision and method detection limits (MDLs). The recovery values after correction with the corresponding labeled standard were between 97.3 and 113.0% for samples spiked at 5 ng/L, 10 ng/L and 20 ng/L. All PFCs showed good linearity and the linear correlation coefficient was over 0.99. The precisions were 1.0–9.0% (n = 6). As the result of the enrichment, the MDL values ranged from 0.03 to 1.9 ng/L and were enough for analysis of the trace levels of PFCs in the Taihu Lake. The method was further validated in determining the source water and the results showed that PFHxS, PFHxA, PFOA and PFOS were the primary PFCs in Taihu Lake which might be different from the other researches. The method can be used for determination of PFCs in water with a stable recovery, good reproducibility, low detection limit, less solvent consumption, time saving and labor saving. To our knowledge, this is the first method that describes the effect of the filter membrane on the determination of PFCs in water which might acquire more accurate concentration of PFCs in Taihu Lake.