Use of a presolvent to include volatile organic analytes in the application range of on-line solid-phase extraction–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Miniaturization of Analytical Methods

This chapter highlights miniaturization in sample preparation as a valuable alternative for green analytical chemistry. The current state of the art is discussed on the basis of examples selected from representative application areas, including biomedical, environmental and food analysis, and involving conventional instrumental techniques for final determination of the target compounds. The emphasis is on those techniques and approaches that have already demonstrated their practicality by the analysis of real-life samples, and in particular on those dealing with the accurate determination of minor organic components. The potential of recent developments in this field for sample treatment simplification and complete hyphenation of analytical processes are discussed and the most pressing remaining limitations evaluated.

Principles, developments and applications of on-line coupling of extraction with chromatography

On-line coupling of extraction and chromatographic separation allows the whole analysis to be performed in a closed system. On-line systems are particularly useful when the analytes are labile, the amount of sample is limited, or very high sensitivity is required. Many on-line systems have been developed both for liquid and for solid samples. This review discusses the different instruments that have been constructed and the factors that need to be considered in the coupling. Selected illustrative applications are described to illustrate the potential of the on-line systems.

Application of microwave-assisted extraction to the analysis of PCBs and CBzs in fly ash from municipal solid waste incinerators

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and chlorobenzenes (CBzs) are two classes of dioxin precursors formed in municipal solid waste incinerators (MSWIs) producing negative health effects similar to those of dioxins. Reducing the analytical time required for determining the concentrations of these compounds in MSWIs is important for quickly evaluating their importance and associated health risks. In the present study, microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) is compared with traditional Soxhlet extraction (SE) to determine the extraction efficiencies attained for PCB and CBz analysis. The efficiencies of MAE are compared with those of SE under various experimental conditions, using fly ash spiked with standards. Water is used as a safe and environmentally friendly solvent in MAE for PCB and CBz analyses and MAE has high extraction efficiency for spiked fly ash compared with that of SE. Furthermore, the extraction time and organic solvent consumption are reduced with MAE compared with SE. The optimum conditions for MAE established in this study are using a 30-ml volume of toluene/acetone (1/1) or a 15-ml volume of toluene, samples with less than 60% water content (WC), and an irradiation time of 15 min.

Fullerenes as sorbent materials for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers preconcentration

A simple and novel SPE system for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers (BTEX) compounds in water is proposed in which samples are directly propelled from a 15 mL glass vial through a sorbent column by means of a needle, thereby avoiding evaporative losses and the sorption of BTEX on the manifold materials. Following elution with 150 microL of ethyl acetate, 1 microL of extract is injected into a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer system. A comparative study of various sorbent materials (C60 fullerene, Tenax TA, and RP-C18) revealed C60 fullerene to be the best choice in terms of sensitivity (a likely result of its increased sample breakthrough volume), precision (the surfactant medium used to prepare samples minimizes evaporative losses), selectivity (C60 fullerene only interacts with nonpolar aromatic compounds), and reusability (columns containing 60 mg of C60 fullerene remain serviceable for at least 6 months). This C60 fullerene-based method exhibits a linear range of 0.1-100 microg/L, a detection limit of 0.04 microg/L, and an RSD of ca. 3%. It was applied to the determination of BTEX in various types of water including sea and waste water with good precision.

Application of water as a solvent in microwave-assisted extraction for analysis of PCBs and CBzs in fly ash

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and chlorobenzenes (CBzs) are two classes of dioxin precursors formed in municipal solid waste incinerators (MSWIs); they produce negative health effects similar to those of dioxins. Reducing the analytical time required for determining the concentrations of these compounds in MSWIs is important for quickly evaluating their importance and assessing associated health risks. In the present study, water is used as a safe and environmentally friendly solvent in microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) for PCB and CBz analyses. MAE is compared with traditional Soxhlet extraction (SE) to determine the extraction efficiencies. The evaluation of extraction efficiencies shows that MAE has a high extraction efficiency compared with that of SE when water content is lower than 60%. Furthermore, the extraction time and organic solvent consumption are reduced with MAE compared with SE.

Injectors for capillary gas chromatography and their application to environmental analysis

The application of different injectors in capillary gas chromatography (GC) analysis of semi-volatile organic contaminants in environmental samples prepared in organic solvents is reviewed. The injectors examined include a split/splitless injector in splitless mode (SS), cold on-column (COC), and programmable temperature vaporizer (PTV) and adaptations of these injector designs. Key issues when selecting an injector include properties of the analyte, such as potential for thermal degradation or discrimination of high boiling point compounds within the injector, and the ability of the GC systems to handle large volume injections (LVI) primarily to lower detection limits and allow direct coupling with sample preparation techniques such as at-line or on-line solid phase extraction (SPE). LVI also require consideration of matrix interference issues. This review examines only injector chamber modifications that are feasible with a standard GC configuration, however some modifications to the chromatographic system to extend the range of applicability of gas chromatography analysis for environmental samples are also noted.

Miniaturization in sample treatment for environmental analysis

The increasing demand for faster, more cost-effective and environmentally friendly analytical methods is a major incentive to improve the classical procedures used for sample treatment in environmental analysis. In most classical procedures, the use of rapid and powerful instrumental techniques for the final separation and detection of the analytes contrasts with the time-consuming and usually manual methods used for sample preparation, which slows down the total analytical process. The efforts made in this field in the past ten years have led to the adaptation of existing methods and the development of new techniques to save time and chemicals, and improve overall performance. One route has been to develop at-line or on-line and, frequently, automated systems. In these approaches, miniaturization has been a key factor in designing integrated analytical systems to provide higher sample throughput and/or unattended operation. Selected examples of novel developments in the field of miniaturized sample preparation for environmental analysis are used to evaluate the merits of the various techniques on the basis of published data on real-life analyses of trace-level organic pollutants. Perspectives and trends are briefly discussed.

Determination of pesticides in red wines with on-line coupled microporous membrane liquid–liquid extraction-gas chromatography

Microporous membrane liquid-liquid extraction (MMLLE) was coupled on-line with gas chromatography for the determination of pesticides in wine. The MMLLE-GC provided to be efficient and selective and the method was linear, repeatable and sensitive. The limits of detection ranged from 0.05 to 2.3 microg/l and the limits of quantification were 0.2-7.5 microg/l for all the analytes using FID as detector. With MS detection LODs in the range 0.03-0.4 and LOQs of 0.3-3.5 microg/l were achieved. The method was applied to the determination of pesticides in several red wines of different origin.

On-line coupled liquid chromatography-gas chromatography

On-line coupled liquid chromatography-gas chromatography (LC-GC) is a powerful technique that combines the best features of LC and GC and is ideal for the analysis of complex samples. This review describes the unique features of on-line coupled LC-GC. The different interfaces and evaporation techniques are presented, along with their advantages and disadvantages. Guidelines are given for selecting a suitable LC-GC technique and representative applications are noted.

Trace-level determination of pesticides in water by means of liquid and gas chromatography

The trace-level determination of pesticides and their transformation products (TPs) in water by means of liquid and gas chromatography (LC and GC) is reviewed. Special attention is given to the use of (tandem) mass spectrometry for identification and confirmation purposes. The complementarity of LC- and GC-based techniques and the potential of comprehensive GCXGC are discussed, and also the impressive performance of time-of-flight mass spectrometry. It is also indicated that, in the near future, the TPs rather than the parent compounds should receive most attention--with a better understanding of matrix effects and eluent composition on the ionization efficiency of analytes being urgently required. Finally, the merits of using much shorter LC columns, or even no column at all (flow-injection analysis) in target analysis are shown, and a more cost-efficient and sophisticated strategy for monitoring programmes is briefly introduced.

On-line coupling of solid-phase extraction to gas chromatography with fast solvent vaporization and concentration in an open injector liner. Analysis of pesticides in aqueous samples

The purpose of this study is to combine solid-phase extraction (SPE) with gas chromatography (GC) for the fully automated determination of pesticides and herbicides in aqueous samples. The interface technique employed for connecting SPE with GC was fast solvent vaporization and concentration in an open injector liner. The interface device consisted of the programmed-temperature vaporizing injector without using the packing material in the liner and the target compounds were concentrated around the inlet of the GC capillary column. This avoided the degradation of target compounds, and no precise control of the injecting speed was required, when an automatic SPE system was connected to GC-MS. The aqueous samples used in this system were prepared by spiking 29 kinds of pesticide and herbicide compounds, which are regulated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Japanese National government, in purified water and river water, to a resulting concentration of 1 microg/l. Employing this system, the recoveries and RSDs (n=6) of most compounds were greater than 75% and within 10%, respectively. From the results of this study, we found that on-line automatic SPE and capillary GC-MS equipped with the fast solvent vaporizing and concentrating method in an open injector liner could be connected in order to obtain good results for the determination of pesticides in water samples.

Efficiency through combining high-performance liquid chromatography and high resolution gas chromatography: progress 1995-1999

Progress during the last 5 years in on-line LC-GC and related techniques is reviewed. In normal-phase LC-GC, the wire interface proved to have advantages over the loop type interface. Further investigations on the solvent evaporation process in an uncoated precolumn under conditions of an early vapour exit revealed that the rules for the transfer by the retention gap techniques must be modified. For reversed-phase LC-GC, approaches with a phase transfer compete with direct evaporation. Eluents were extracted into a bed of Tenax located in a programmed-temperature vaporiser and thermally desorbed. Direct evaporation is possible when a hot vaporising chamber is used and solvent/solute separation occurs in a separate compartment, a coated precolumn possibly in combination with packed beds. As a future strategy, LC-GC transfer techniques should be adjusted to those of large volume injection and involve a single device. It is believed that on-column injection/transfer is the choice. This requires that concurrent evaporation in LC-GC is performed by the on-column interface.

Solid-phase extraction for multiresidue analysis of organic contaminants in water

To overcome the limitations of the detection systems associated with gas or liquid chromatography, a sample pretreatment is required with the objective to provide a sample fraction enriched with all the target analytes and as free as possible from other matrix components. There is now no doubt that solid-phase extraction (SPE) has now become the method of choice for carrying out simultaneously the extraction and concentration of many compounds in aqueous samples. Many recent applications of SPE to multiresidue analysis are reviewed with an emphasis on the importance of the choice of the sorbent and of the sample volume. SPE is particularly well adapted to multiresidue analysis including compounds from a wide range of polarity or characterized by various physico-chemical properties. However, SPE is not completely free from practical problems inherent to the nature of the compounds or to the coupling to the chromatographic systems. Many examples are reported to illustrate these problems which can in most cases be circumvented. New developments in SPE are also reviewed.

On-line coupling of equilibrium-sorptive enrichment to gas chromatography to determine low-molecular-mass pollutants in environmental water samples

On-line combination of equilibrium sorptive enrichment and gas chromatography is used for the analysis of a group of pollutants varying widely in polarity and volatility in aqueous samples at trace levels. For the ESE process open-tubular traps were used. The newly developed hyphenated method shows a high sensitivity for all the compounds under study. The detection limits were typically between 0.1 and 1 microg/l. The sample volumes required for the compounds to reach equilibrium with the stationary phase are in the range of 20 ml for the aromatic hydrocarbons included in the study (benzene, toluene and p-xylene), to 200 ml for epichlorohydrin and dichlorohydrin. Within- and between-day precision of the absolute peak areas varied between 3 and 16%. The performance of the new method was tested by the analysis of different environmental water samples.

On-line combination of aqueous-sample preparation and capillary gas chromatography

Methods currently in use to combine the preparation of aqueous samples on-line with capillary gas chromatography (GC) comprise heartcut-orientated reversed-phase liquid chromatography-GC and analyte-isolation-orientated analyte extraction-GC. These approaches either use techniques in which water is directly introduced onto the GC column, or an indirect approach in which water is eliminated, i.e., by solid-phase extraction, solid-phase microextraction or liquid-liquid extraction, prior to introduction of the analytes onto the GC column. The latter type of approach is much more successful and user-friendly, and many applications have been reported.

On-line combination of aqueous-sample preparation and capillary gas chromatography

An overview is presented of methods currently in use to combine the preparation of aqueous samples on-line with capillary gas chromatography. Two approaches can be distinguished: heartcut-orientated reversed-phase liquid chromatography-gas chromatography (GC) and analyte-isolation-orientated analyte extraction-GC. These approaches either use techniques in which water is directly introduced onto the GC column, or an indirect approach in which water is eliminated, i.e., by solid-phase extraction, solid-phase microextraction or liquid-liquid extraction, prior to introduction of the analytes onto the GC column. The latter type of approach is much more successful and user friendly, and many applications have been reported.