Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 3, 2026
Extraction and Detection of Geosmin and 2-Methylisoborneol in Water and Fish using High-Capacity Sorptive Extraction Probes and GC-MS
Published on: July 3, 2025
Analysis of Five Earthy-Musty Odorants in Environmental Water by HS-SPME/GC-MS
Zhen Ding1, Shifu Peng2, Weiwen Xia3
1School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210009, China ; Department of Environmental and Endemic Diseases Control, Jiangsu Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210009, China.
Abstract:
The pressing issue of earthy and musty odor compounds in natural waters, which can affect the organoleptic properties of drinking water, makes it a public health concern. A simple and sensitive method for simultaneous analysis of five odorants in environmental water was developed by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) coupled to chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), including geosmin (GSM) and 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB), as well as dimethyl trisulfide (DMTS), β -cyclocitral, and β -ionone. Based on the simple modification of original magnetic stirrer purchased from CORNING (USA), the five target compounds can be separated within 23 min, and the calibration curves show good linearity with a correlation coefficient above 0.999 (levels = 5). The limits of detection (LOD) are all below 1.3 ng L(-1), and the relative standard deviation (%RSD) is between 4.4% and 9.9% (n = 7) and recoveries of the analytes from water samples are between 86.2% and 112.3%. In addition, the storage time experiment indicated that the concentrations did not change significantly for GSM and 2-MIB if they were stored in canonical environment. In conclusion, the method in this study could be applied for monitoring these five odorants in natural waters.
