Abstract
ABSTRACTChlorophenols are a category of toxic pollutants that are ubiquitously present in the environment. This paper presents a reliable and feasible method for the determination of five chlorophenols in sewage sludge and soil using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The pretreatment involved ultrasonic-assisted extraction and solid-phase extraction purification with hydrophilic–lipophilic balance cartridges. LC-MS/MS equipped with an electrospray ionization source operated in negative mode was used for detection, and multitude reaction monitoring mode was applied for data acquisition. The pretreatment and working conditions of LC-MS/MS were optimized to achieve satisfactory results. The intra-batch accuracies were 100.5–113.4% with relative standard deviations ≤ 15.6% for the chlorophenols in sewage sludge and 71.3–102.7% with relative standard deviations ≤ 14.0% for those in soil. The inter-batch accuracies were 86.1–100.5% (relative standard deviations ≤ 33.6%) for sewage sludge samples and 70.5–112.5% (relative standard deviations ≤ 28.2%) for soil samples, respectively. This method has been applied to the determination of chlorophenols in sewage sludge of wastewater treatment plants and soil collected from Guangzhou, China. Parachlorophenol, 2,4,6-trichlorophenol, 2,3,4,6-tetrachlorophenol, and pentachlorophenol were detected in some sewage sludge samples, with concentrations from 0.51 to 13.20 ng/g. In addition, parachlorophenol, 2,3,4,6-tetrachlorophenol, and pentachlorophenol were found in all the soil samples with concentrations from 0.33 to 5.21 ng/g. The chromatographic behavior, on-filter adsorption behavior, and the relationship between optimal collision energies and degree of chlorination of the chlorophenols was investigated. This method will be conducive to environmental research focusing on pollution investigation of chlorophenols in the environment.
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