Determination of 10 Haloacetamides in drinking water by gas chromatography with automated solid phase extraction

Drinking water disinfection may result in the formation of different classes of toxic disinfection by-products (DBPs). Haloacetamides (HAcAms) are an emerging class of nitrogenous DBPs (N-DBPs), which are generally more prevalent at lower concentrations in disinfected water than carbonaceous DBPs. Herein a fast, convenient, and effective method of analyzing 10 HAcAms in drinking water samples was demonstrated. This method was developed using gas chromatography /electron capture detection (GC/ECD) supplemented with automated solid phase extraction (auto-SPE). The variables for automated SPE procedures were further optimized, including the selection of SPE sorbents, types and volumes of extraction solvents, SPE washing solvents and wash times. Under optimized conditions, the instrumental linearity range was 0.5-150 μg L^-1 with correlation coefficients>0.9975. The limits of detection and quantification of this method were 0.002-0.003 μg L^-1 and 0.005-0.010 μg L^-1, respectively. The recovery values ranged from 72.4% to 108.5%, and the relative standard deviations ranged from 3.3% to 9.1%. Therefore, the auto-SPE-GC-ECD method showed acceptable linearity and repeatability and was subsequently validated and applied to analyze 10 HAcAms in drinking water.