Automated solid-phase extraction of herbicides from water for gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric analysis

An automated solid-phase extraction (SPE) method was developed for the pre-concentration of chloroacetanilide and triazine herbicides, and two triazine metabolites from 100-ml water samples. Breakthrough experiments for the C₁₈ SPE cartridge show that the two triazine metabolites are not fully retained and that increasing flow-rate decreases their retention. Standard curve r² values of 0.998–1.000 for each compound were consistently obtained and a quantitation level of 0.05 μg/l was achieved for each compound tested. More than 10 000 surface and ground water samples have been analyzed by this method.