NEW FAST SCREENING METHOD FOR ORGANOCHLORINE PESTICIDES IN WATER BY USING SOLID-PHASE MICROEXTRACTION WITH FAST GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY AND A PULSED-DISCHARGE ELECTRON-CAPTURE DETECTOR

A new fast screening method has been developed for the analysis of org anochlorine pesticides in water that takes less than 10 min to perform and has detection limits of the order of 10 ng l(-1), Pesticide extra ction was achieved by solid-phase microextraction and the separation w as performed using a micro-bore (0.1 mm) capillary column, A laborator y-built cryotrap system was used to focus the analytes prior to introd uction to the column and a pulsed-discharge electron capture detector enabled sensitive, selective measurements of the pesticide peaks to be made. The 100 mu m polydimethylsilicone (PDMS) coated fibre gave bett er recoveries than the 30 or 7 mu m film PDMS fibres and an inter-fibr e study comparing three 100 mu m film fibres showed good reproducibili ty, With extraction times of 2 min, the procedure was found to be line ar over the range 0.01-1.2 ng ml(-1). The procedure was tested with a real river water sample.