Evaluation of the atmospheric pressure photoionization source for the determination of benzidines and chloroanilines in water and industrial effluents by high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

A solid phase extraction-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry based analytical method suitable for simultaneous analysis of benzidine, 3,3'-dichlorobenzidine, mono-, di, and tri-chloroanilines has been developed. Normal phase separation by liquid chromatography was performed using a cyano propyl methyl silica column, and atmospheric pressure photoionization was employed as interface with mass spectrometer. The developed method was evaluated in terms of limit of detection, accuracy, and precision. The quantification limit for all the compounds ranged between 7 and 112 ng L-1, while recovery for all the compounds was higher than 94%. The method was tested by analyzing different industrial wastes, showing residual contamination by most of the analytes. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.