Determination of triclocarban in aquatic plants by using SPE combined with HPLC-ESI-MS/MS

Abstract

A specific, sensitive, and reliable analytical method involving homogenate extraction, solid phase extraction (SPE), and detection by high-performance liquid phase chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry was developed in this study for the determination of triclocarban (TCC) in aquatic plants. Key factors that could affect the extraction and clean-up performance, including the extraction solvent and its volume, the homogenate extraction time, the SPE cartridge used, and the eluents and their volume, were examined and optimised. Under optimum conditions, the linearity of the method ranged from 0.2 ng g⁻¹ to 200 ng g⁻¹, with correlation coefficients (r²) >0.999. The limit of detection was 0.05 ng g⁻¹, based on the ratio of the chromatographic signal to baseline noise (S/N = 3). Spiked recoveries of TCC in real aquatic plant samples ranged from 91.8% to 106.1%. The matrix effect value was 101.90%, with a relative standard deviation of 5.1%. The proposed method was successfully applied to analyse TCC in aquatic plant samples collected from a natural water environment.