Rapid and simultaneous determination of ten off-flavor compounds in water by headspace solid phase microextraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

A simple and sensitive analytical procedure for the determination of multi-component compounds in water samples was developed and optimized using the headspace solid-phase microextraction(HSSPME) coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(GC-MS). Ten off-flavor compounds, including geosmin(GSM), 2-methylisoborneol(2-MIB), 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine(IPMP), 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine(IBMP), β-ionone, trans-2,cis-6-nonadienal(NDE), 2,3,4-trichloroanisole(2,3,4-TCA), 2,3,6-trichroloanisole(2,3,6-TCA), 2,4,6-trichloroanisole(2,4,6-TCA), and 2,4,6-tribromoanisole(2,4,6-TBA) were used as the target analytes. The optimization of extraction parameters including fibers types, extraction time, extraction temperature, stirring rate, sample volume, and ionic strength was carried out through the univariate approach. Ten off-flavor compounds were quantified within 50 min under the optimal conditions. Calibration curves with good linearity(r~2=0.990-0.998) were obtained in the range 1.0/2.0-100 ng/L, while the limits of detection for all compounds were lower than or close to the odor threshold concentration. Furthermore, the proposed method was applied to analyzing and determining the off-flavor compounds in real water samples from water-treatment plants.