Highly Sensitive Determination of Chlorophenols in Sea Water by Gas Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A procedure is developed for the simultaneous highly sensitive determination of eight chlorophenols in sea water based on a combination of isotope dilution, solid-phase extraction on an octadecyl adsorbent, acetylation, and determination by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry with electron ionization. The attained limits of detection for the analytes are in the range 0.06-0.26 ng/L, which is 2-3 orders of magnitude lower than the standards established for the maximum permissible concentration. The duration of analysis is 15 min. The application of a deuterated internal standard ensures the high accuracy and reproducibility of the results obtained. The developed procedure was successfully used for the analysis of real water samples from the Barents Sea; the found total chlorophenol concentration in them was 15-24 ng/L. The main pollutant of the studied sea water samples is 2,4-dichlorophenol, which comprised about 30% of the total concentration of chlorophenols.