Development and validation of a method using on-line solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography with...

Alkylphenols are nonbiodegradable metabolites arising from various pathways of aerobic and anaerobic degradation of the nonionic surfactants alkylphenol ethoxylates. A method based on the use of on-line solid-phase extraction (SPE) and liquid chromatography (LC) with UV detection was developed to determine bisphenol A, octylphenol, and nonylphenol at trace levels in water. The on-line coupled SPE procedure automatically enables an approximately 300-fold preconcentration of analytes, which can be further enhanced by an increase in applied sample volume. By using C18 cartridges, recoveries of >90% were obtained for all the analytes. A validation procedure was carried out with a groundwater sample to ensure the quality of the results; performance criteria such as detection limits (LODs), quantitation limits (LOQs), linearity, and precision were evaluated. LODs and LOQs in the range of 0.17-0.36 and 0.35-1.88 microg/L, respectively, were found; for all the analytes, linearity was established over 2 orders of magnitude (r2 >0.997, n = 54). The intraday repeatability values expressed as relative standard deviations were <5.3%; a nested analysis of variance was performed to verify the influence of 3 different factors, i.e., different days, extraction procedure, and LC replicate injection, on data precision.