ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURAL ISOMERS OF POLYCHLORINATED PHENOLS IN WATER BYLIQUID-NITROGEN-TRAPPING GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY - FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED-SPECTROSCOPY

A procedure is described for the identification and determination of s tructural isomers of polychlorinated phenols in drinking water. First, their acetylation and concentration on graphitized carbon cartridges are carried out. Detection is accomplished by gas chromatography (GC) coupled with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) using a di rect deposition (DD) interface. In this way it is possible to accurate ly identify and differentiate variably substituted isomers of chloroph enols, which is very difficult or even impossible to do by means of th e widespread gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) instrumentat ion. Chlorophenols occurring in water samples have been identified acc ording to their IR spectra and additionally the identification was con firmed by means of the MS-MS spectra obtained with a GC-MS-MS tandem i nstrument.