Sensitive and robotic determination of bromate in sea water and drinking deep-sea water by headspace solid-phase micro extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

A robotic method has been established for the determination of bromate in sea water and drinking deep-sea water. Bromate in water was converted into volatile derivative, which was measured with headspace solid-phase micro extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME GC-MS). Derivatization reagent and the HS-SPME parameters (selection of fibre, extraction/derivatization temperature, heating time and; the morality of HCl) were optimized and selected. Under the established conditions, the detection and the quantification limits were 0.016 mu g L-1 and 0.051 mu g L-1, respectively, and the intra- and inter-day relative standard deviation was less than 7% at concentrations of 1.0 and 10.0 mu g L-1. The calibration curve showed good linearity with r(2) = 0.9998. The common ions Cl-, NO3-, SO42-, HPO42-, H2PO4-, K+, Na+, NH4+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Ba2+, Mn4+, Mn2+, Fe3+ and Fe2+ did not interfere even when present in 1000-fold excess over the active species. The method was successfully applied to the determination of bromate in sea water and drinking deep-sea water. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.