Sa. Barshick et Wh. Griest, TRACE ANALYSIS OF EXPLOSIVES IN SEAWATER USING SOLID-PHASE MICROEXTRACTION AND GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY ION-TRAP MASS-SPECTROMETRY, Analytical chemistry (Washington), 70(14), 1998, pp. 3015-3020
Complex matrixes typically cannot be analyzed directly to obtain the s
electivity and sensitivity required for most trace analysis applicatio
ns. To circumvent this problem, solid-phase microextraction (SPME) tec
hniques were used to preconcentrate analytes selectively prior to gas
chromatographic/ion trap mass spectrometric analysis. This approach wa
s applied to the trace analysis of explosives and their metabolites in
seawater. The choice of SPME sorbent phase was shown to be important
especially for the amino metabolites of trinitrotoluene (TNT) and RDX,
which were extracted better on polar phases. Although equilibration t
imes were quite lengthy, on the order of 30 min or greater, a sampling
time of only 10 min was shown to be sufficient for achieving low part
-per-billion (ppb) to part-per-trillion (ppt) detection limits for TNT
and the amino metabolites in real seawater samples. While SPME was id
eal for rapid screening of explosives in seawater samples, methods for
improving the reproducibility and accuracy of quantification are stil
l being investigated.