ANALYSIS OF DRINKING-WATER FOR TRACE ORGANICS

The protection of drinking water quality is one of the most important mandates of government environment departments. During the past 2 decades, more and more attention has been spent on the trace organic chemical pollutants that may be present in potable water. Consequently, the detection, identification, and quantitation of trace organics in drinking water has been the subject of considerable analytical development work. Sophisticated methods based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) are now in routine use that can detect organics at parts per trillion concentrations. For some analytes, parts per quadrillion detection limits have been reported. Although these capabilities are largely due to the maturity of GC-MS as an analytical technique, recent developments in solid-phase extraction (SPE) and other reduced-solvent or even solvent-free extraction and concentration methods are leading the way to even greater analytical performance. Other methods based on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) may lead to concern over many other analytes not determined by GC-MS. The above and related techniques are reviewed to demonstrate the state of current analytical methods for the determination of trace organics in drinking water samples, and to discuss future developments. Throughout the 1980s, development of GC-MS instrumentation and chromatographic procedures were paramount, but attention has now shifted to improving sample preparation methods. Eventually, the development of fully automated methods from sampling to report generation will be realized.