Hydrology: Current Research

Chemometrics Optimization of Volatile Organic Compounds Analysis in Water by Static Headspace Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Mohammad Hossein Fatemi, Hossein Kouchakpour and Hanieh Malekzadeh

Static headspace coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was applied to extraction and analysis of volatile organic compounds in water samples. The effects of various factors affecting on the extraction efficiency including: the extraction temperature, extraction time, salt concentration and stirring speed were carried out by means of a 24 full factorial design. It was found that the effects of extraction temperature and salt concentration were signi?cant. Then, a central composite design was performed to optimize the level of these factors. The optimal headspace conditions were achieved when the vials were heated under 88°C and 29% w/w addition of salt. At optimum operating conditions, analytical figures of merit of method such as linearity (0.9962-0.9996), repeatability (1.2-12.13%), detection limits (0.1-4.9 μg.L−1) and linearity dynamic range (10-1000 μg.L−1) were determined. The proposed methods can be used to direct investigation of the presence of Volatile organic compounds in environmental
samples without pre-treatment of samples. Finally the optimized method was used to investigate the existence of volatile organic compounds in Babolroud River in the north of Iran.