Application of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in detection of nitrosamines in drinking water

Objective To establish and optimize a solid phase extraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(SPE-GC-MS)method for simultaneous detection of nine N-nitrosamines in drinking water.Methods The drinking water samples were purified and concentrated with SPE-GC-MS.Recovery,accuracy,method detection limit,lower limit,and standard curve were used to verify the established method.Results The retention time of nine N-nitrosamines was between 9.819 and 20.541 minutes.A good linearity within the concerntration from 10 μg/L to 1 000 μg/L was observed (R²>0.999).The detection limit of the method was between 2.27 ng/L and 6.20 ng/L.The recovery for low (50 ng/L) and medium (100 ng/L) to high concentration (200ng/L) were between 62.32%-89.71% and 73.43%-109.66%.The relative standard deviation (RSD) for all the detections were less than 10.The recoveries for all drinking water samples were between 74.62% and 102.74%.Conclusion The solid phase extraction with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry method established could meet the requirement for the detection of nine N-nitrosamines in drinking water samples.