On-line solid phase extraction fast liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry for the analysis of bisphenol A and its chlorinated derivatives in water samples

In this study an on-line column-switching fast LC-MS/MS method was developed to analyze bisphenol A (BPA) and its chlorinated derivatives in water. Fast liquid chromatographic separation was performed on a C18 reversed phase column based on fused-core particle technology (2.7 mu m particle size) providing analysis times shorter than 3 min and high peak efficiencies. The main benefit of this LC system is that it can easily be hyphenated to a conventional on-line preconcentration device allowing the direct analysis of water samples without any pretreatment at concentrations levels down to 60 ng L-1 and preventing contaminations frequently reported in the analysis of BPA. This on-line SPE fast LC system was coupled to a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer operating in enhanced mass resolution mode (Q1 FWHM = 0.7 Th. Q3 FWHM = 0.1 Th) in order to minimize interferences and chemical noise. This highly sensitive and selective method was successfully employed to analyze BPA and its chlorinated derivatives in water samples. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.