Determination of volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons in water samples by static headspace gas chromatography with electron capture detection

A simple, efficient, solvent‐free, and commercial readily available approach for determination of five volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons in water samples using the static headspace sampling and gas chromatography with electron capture detection has been described. The proposed static headspace sampling method was initially optimized and the optimum experimental conditions found were 10 mL water sample containing 20% w/v sodium chloride placed in a 20 mL vial and stirred at 50ºC for 20 min. The linearity of the method was in the range of 1.2–240 μg/L for dichloromethane, 0.2–40 μg/L for trichloromethane, 0.005–1 μg/L for perchloromethane, 0.025–5 μg/L for trichloroethylene, and 0.01–2 μg/L for perchloroethylene, with coefficients of determination ranging between 0.9979 and 0.9990. The limits of detection were in the low μg/L level, ranging between 0.001 and 0.3 μg/L. The relative recoveries of spiked five volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons with external calibration method at different concentration levels in pure, tap, sea water of Jiaojiang Estuary, and sea water of waters of Xiaomendao were in the range of 91–116, 96–105, 86–112, and 80–111%, respectively, and with relative standard deviations of 1.9–3.6, 2.3–3.5, 1.5–2.7, and 2.3–3.7% (n = 5), respectively. The performance of the proposed method was compared with traditional liquid–liquid extraction on the real water samples (i.e., pure, tap, and sea water, etc.) and comparable efficiencies were obtained. It is concluded that this method can be successfully applied for the determination of volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons in different water samples.