Determination of Aldehydes in Environmental Water by Solid-Phase Microextraction and Gas Chromatography - Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Microwave-assisted extraction coupled to headspace solid-phase microextraction with on-fiber derivatization with gas chromatography ion trap mass spectrometry analysis is reported for the determination of aldehydes in environmental water. Hexanal, (E)-2-hexenal, heptanal, octanal, nonanal, E-2-decanal, and E, E-2,4-decadienal were employed to develop and validate this method. The effects of relevant parameters on the quantitative extraction of these analytes in this one-step procedure were systematically investigated. The aldehydes were extracted from environmental water by a poly(dimethylsiloxane)/divinylbenzene fiber using o-(2, 3, 4, 5, 6-pentafluoro)-benzylhydroxylamine as the derivatization reagent. Under microwave-assisted heating, the aldehydes were transferred from water by headspace solid phase microextraction. Thus, efficient extraction and derivatization were simultaneously achieved. The recovery values ranged from 72.2–96.9%, and the relative standard deviation was between 4.1–14% for the aldehydes. The detection limits were from 0.001–0.005 µg L−1. The method was validated illustrating its potential for the analysis of environmental water while offering simplicity and rapid analysis.