Gas-cycle-assisted headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography for rapid analysis of organic pollutants

Abstract

Herein, a new gas-cycle-assisted (GCA) headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) device was designed to rapidly extract organic pollutants with high K_ow and boiling points, which have difficulty in volatilization from matrix to headspace. Organic pollutants, including three polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), four polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and five phthalate esters (PAEs), were selected to evaluate the performance of GCA HS-SPME. Compared with conventional HS-SPME, the equilibrium times of GCA HS-SPME for extraction of PAHs, PCBs, and PAEs were greatly shortened from 70–90 to 5–11 min. Moreover, the limits of detection for analysis of PAHs were achieved at pg mL⁻¹ level by GCA HS-SPME coupled with gas chromatography-flame ionization detection.