Simultaneous determination of 37 volatile organic compounds at ng/L concentration level in surface water by HS-SPME-GC/MS

A method to detect 37 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in surface water was described based on headspace solid-phase micro extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. VOCs in water were vaporized for 30 min at 40 °C in a headspace vial and adsorbed on 85 μm carboxen-polydimethylsiloxane. Under the established condition, the lowest quantification limit was 4.1-96 ng/L by using 4.0 mL water sample, and the relative standard deviation was less than 15% at concentrations of 0.05 and 0.50 μg/L. The detection limits meet lower concentration than 1/10 of the water quality criteria for VOCs established by the US EPA or Germany. The LOQ is a sensitivity which the monitoring for the establishing water quality criteria requires. When the proposed method was used to analyze the target compounds in sixteen surface water samples and total 16 VOCs were detected in surface water samples collected from Gum-River. Maximum concentrations of VOCs detected were not exceeded the EPA or Germany guidelines in any of the samples.