Determination of chlorobenzenes in pure, tap, and sea water by static headspace gas chromatography‐electron capture detection

A simple, efficient, solvent‐free, and commercial readily available approach for determination of 11 chlorobenzenes ( CB s) in water samples using the static headspace ( HS ) sampling and gas chromatography‐electron capture detector has been described. The proposed static HS sampling method was initially optimized and the optimum experimental conditions found were 10 mL water sample containing 20% (w/v) sodium chloride placed in a 20 mL vial and stirred at 70°C for 30 min. The linearity of the method ranged from 0.16 to 8.0 μg/L for dichlorobenzene isomers, 0.0176∼0.88 μg/L for trichlorobenzene isomers, 0.004∼0.2 μg/L for tetrachlorobenzene isomers, and from 0.001 to 0.05 μg/L for pentachlorobenzene and hexachlorobenzene, with correlation coefficients ranging between 0.9992 and 0.9999. The limits of detection were in the low μg/L level, ranging between 0.0002 and 0.04 μg/L. The relative recoveries of spiked CB s with external calibration or standard addition method at different concentration levels in pure, tap, and sea water samples were 83∼116%, 89∼108%, and 93∼112%, respectively, and with relative standard deviations of 1.9∼6.3%, 1.6∼5.4%, and 2.5∼5.7% ( n = 5), respectively. It is concluded that this method can be successfully applied for the determination of CB s in pure, tap, and sea water samples.