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DETERMINATION OF CHLOROPHENOLS, NITROPHENOLS, AND METHYLPHENOLS IN GROUND-WATER SAMPLES USING HIGH PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY
Citation:
Lin, Z., G. Jungclaus, AND S G. Huling*. DETERMINATION OF CHLOROPHENOLS, NITROPHENOLS, AND METHYLPHENOLS IN GROUND-WATER SAMPLES USING HIGH PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY. Presented at 2004 Annual Conf. American Institute of Hydrology, Las Vegas, NV, October 17 - 20, 2004.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed to quantitatively determine phenolic compounds and their isomers in aqueous samples. The HPLC method can analyze a mixture of 15 contaminants in the same analytical run with an analysis time of 25 minutes. The quantitation limits (QL) of the target compounds are 30 g/L and their method detection limits (MDL) vary from 0.7 and 18 g/L with an exception for pentachlorophenol that has relatively higher QL and MDL (see the following Table). In practice, groundwater samples are preserved with chemicals when they are collected in the field before they are delivered to the laboratory. Hydrochloric acid (HCl) and trisodium phosphate (TSP) are two common chemicals used for the purpose of ground-water sample preservation. The impact of the use of HCl and TSP preservation was investigated. The results indicate the stability of some phenolic compounds was effected by pH. The recovery of 4-nitrophenol, for instance, decreased to approximately 20% when TSP was used, while its recovery was greater than 80% when HCl was used.