Determination of phthalates in Jordanian bottled water using GC-MS and HPLC-UV: environmental study

A simple, accurate and reliable method was presented and validated for the simultaneous monitoring of six phthalates at trace level concentrations in seven different brands of commercial bottled mineral water from Jordan. Liquid-liquid extraction with a mixture of methylene chloride-petroleum ether (20:80, v/v) was used for isolation and enrichment of the phthalates and sample cleanup. This was followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) for identification and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultraviolet detection for quantification. The linear range of the GC-MS calibration curve was 0.3-1.2 µg/L with a mean correlation coefficient (R(2)) of 0.9920 ± 0.0063, the detection limit was < 0.1 µg/L and the percentage recovery was >90%. For HPLC, the linear range was 0.5-10 mg/L with R(2) = 0.9985 ± 0.0012 and an average detection limit of 0.20 ± 0.15 µg/L. The results indicated that the Jordanian bottled water was contaminated with dibutyl-, di-2-ethylhexyl- and di-n-octyl-phthalate, with total phthalate concentrations between 8.1 and 19.8 µg/L. Increasing the storage temperature of the bottled water increased the content of leached phthalates in the water (total concentration of 23-29.2 µg/L).