Extractable organic chlorine (EOCI) is a sum parameter used to describ
e the organic chlorine concentration in solid or liquid samples that c
an produce injurious effects on health. In this work, a new method is
presented for the determination EOCI. Inductively coupled plasma mass
spectrometry (ICP-MS) is not especially suitable for the determination
of chlorine owing to the high ionization energy of chlorine. However,
when electrothermal vaporization (ETV) is compared with ICP-MS, the s
ensitivity is high enough to facilitate sum parameter analysis from li
mited sample volumes. Ethyl acetate has been used as an extraction sol
vent. Chlorine was determined by collecting data during heating by mon
itoring m/z 35 using the single-ion monitoring mode. The detection lim
it for EOCI by ETV-ICP-MS is approximately 10 ng.