Analysis of organic pollutants in water at trace levels using fully automated solid-phase extraction coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography

A method has been developed for the determination of trace levels of 32 pesticides, 19 explosives and 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in water in three individual steps. Solid-phase enrichment (SPE) is coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a fully automated system. The organic pollutants are enriched on reusable cartridges packed with adsorbent materials: pesticides and explosives on a mixed bed of divinylbenzene-ethylvinylbenzene copolymers (LiChrolut EN®) and perfluorinated polyethylene (PolyF®), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on C18-modified silica (Zorbax® ODS1). Thermally assisted desorption (TAD) has been shown to increase the recovery of analyt…