A simplified Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe approach for the determination of trihalomethanes and benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes in soil matrices by fast gas chromatography with mass spectrometry detection

A method based on simplified QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe) extraction followed by large-injection volume-fast gas chromatography and mass spectrometry detection has been developed for the determination of trihalomethanes (chloroform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane and bromoform) and BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes) in soil samples.The simplified version of QuEChERS used meets the requirements of the “green chemistry” and provides reliable results with high sample throughput, low solvent consumption, little labour and the use of materials commonly employed in laboratories. The GC device used is equipped with a programmable temperature vaporizer (PTV), with a liner packed with Tenax-TA^®. Using the solvent-vent mode, the PTV allows the injection of large volumes of sample, affording an improvement in the sensitivity of the method. The chromatographic conditions used here allowed the separation of the compounds in less than 5.50 min. Good linearity was obtained for all the target compounds, with highly satisfactory repeatability and reproducibility values. The limits of detection were in the 0.2 to 15 μg kg⁻¹ range. The method was validated by the analysis of two certified reference materials.