Determination of carbetamide in groundwater by micro liquid-liquid extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Summary A method is proposed for the determination of carbetamide in water below European Union guidelines (detection limit,DL, below 0.1 μgL⁻¹). Micro liquid-liquid extraction with dichloromethane affords carbetamide which is converted to aniline by hydrolysis. Identification and quantification of aniline was performed by GC-MS. The retention time was 4.24 min. Quantification was achieved by single-ion monitoring (SIM) atm/z 66 and 93. Clean-up is not necessary before SIM. Deuterated anthracene (²H₁₀-anthracene) was used as internal standard. The method was used to determine carbetamide in different types of water sample spiked at very low concentration levels (0.13–10.00 μgL⁻¹). TheDL was 0.04 μgL⁻¹. The effect of the presence of other carbamates was also studied.