Determination of N-nitrosodimethylamine at part-per-trillion levels in drinking waters and contaminated groundwaters

N-nitrosodimethylamine is a high, carcinogenic manufacturing by-product of unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine a component of rocket fuel. Prior disposal practices resulted in the contamination of groundwater near certain military installations with both species. The current regulatory threshold promulgated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for NDMA in surface waters designated for drinking is 0.7 ng NDMA/L (0.7 pptr)L. Existing procedures for determining NDMA in aqueous samples typically employ dichloromethane extraction followed by concentration to a final volume of 1 mL, and gas chromatographic analysis of a 2 {mu}L aliquot of concentrate using either a nitrogen-phosphorus detector (NPD), mass spectrometric detector, or chemiluminescent nitrogen detector (CLND). Such a protocol does not permit detection of NDMA at the desired health-based criterion unless high-resolution mass spectrometric (HRMS) detectors are employed. The analytical procedure described in this work employed an initial solid-phase extraction of groundwater samples with a preconditioned Empore C{sub 18} disk, used to remove interfering neutral species including di-isopropylmethane phosphonate (DIMP), prior to continuous overnight extraction