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ON SITE SOLID-PHASE EXTRACTION AND LABORATORY ANALYSIS OF ULTRA-TRACE SYNTHETIC MUSKS IN MUNICIPAL SEWAGE EFFLUENT USING GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY-MASS SPECTROMETRY. FULL-SCAN MODE
Citation:
Impact/Purpose:
Objectives of ORD Involvement:
< Assume the primary leadership role in nurturing this broad research area.
< Catalyze research in academe, industry, and government (efforts to date have resulted in language for a DW STAR RFA and in proposals to the Sea Grant Program).
< Give teachers a new tool for environmental science classes (useful for elementary, high school, college, and graduate levels). A critical review article that was published in FY00 in NIEHS,s Environmental Health Perspectives (EFP) is used in various graduate-level curriculums, and is serving as the core around which a University of Maryland Chemistry seminar series is being planned. Have received thank yous from teachers who claim that the topic has rejuvenated their teaching of environmental science.
< Give students (from grade- through college-graduate schools) new insights and perspectives with regard to the many aspects of environmental pollution.
< Give the public a new perspective on environmental pollution and teach them, that as individuals, they can control the quality of their environment "The Imperative of the Individual". Very powerful tool to teach pollution prevention.
< Foster a dialog/debate amongst the science community to ascertain what aspect (if any) we need to be concerned about.
Description:
Fragrance materials such as synthetic musks in aqueous samples, are normally determined by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry in the selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode to provide maximum sensitivity after liquid-liquid extraction of I -L samples. Full-scan mass spectra are required to verify that a target analyte has been found by comparison with the mass spectra of fragrance compounds in the NIST mass spectral library. A I -L sample usually provides insufficient analyte for full scan data acquisition. This paper describes an on-site extraction method developed at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)- Las Vegas, Nevada - for synthetic musks from 60 L of wastewater effluent. Such a large sample volume permits high-quality, full-scan mass spectra to be obtained for a wide array of synthetic musks. Quantification of these compounds was achieved from the full-scan data directly, without the need to acquire SIM data. The detection limits obtained with this method are an order of magnitude lower than those obtained from liquid-liquid and other solid phase extraction methods. This method is highly reproducible, and recoveries ranged from 80 to 97% in spiked sewage treatment plant effluent. The high rate of sorbent-sample mass transfer eliminated the need for a methanolic activation step, which reduced extraction time, labor, and solvent use, More samples could be extracted in the field at lower cost. After sample extraction, the light- weight cartridges are easily transported and stored.