A novel headspace solid-phase microextraction method for the exact determination of organochlorine pesticides in environmental soil samples

A novel method of determining organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) is described. It is based on solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography–electron capture detection. During the development of the method, soil samples were prepared, spiked with standard solution, and then aged for some time. Extraction conditions such as the extraction time, the NaCl content, the volume of water, the extraction temperature and the desorption time were investigated and optimized. The limits of detection obtained using the method ranged from 0.10 to 0.51 ng g⁻¹, and relative standard deviations were lower than 10% for most organochlorine pesticides. Real soil samples were successfully analyzed using the proposed method. The results from the method developed here were in good agreement with those obtained using ultrasonic extraction. The result demonstrates that aging soils spiked with standard solution is an important method development step, because the soil samples obtained using this approach are more like real soils than those obtained when aging is not used.