Capillary gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric determination of pyridine bases in environmental samples

A method is described for the determination of pyridine bases in environmental samples such as river water and bottom sediments. After distillation from environmental samples, the pyridine bases are concentrated on a rotary evaporator, extracted with n-hexane and determined by capillary gas chromatography-selected-ion monitoring (GC-SIM). The determination of twenty pyridine bases is possible using a 15 m X 0.53 mm I.D. capillary column coated with DBWAX (equivalent to PEG 20M) followed by SIM. The detection limits were 0.01-0.1 ng and recoveries from river water and bottom sediment were over 90% with coefficients of variation below 4% (n = 7) except for pyridine. This method is capable of the simultaneous determination of twenty pyridine bases with sufficient sensitivity and accuracy to be applicable to environmental samples.