Solid-phase microextraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography-fluorimetric detection for the determination of bisphenol A, 4-n-nonylphenol, and 4-tert-octylphenol in environmental water samples

Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coupled to high performance liquid chromatography and fluorimetric detection has been-developed for the analysis of three endocrine disruptors: bisphenol A, 4-n-nonylphenol, and 4-tert-octylphenol. Several kinds of commercially available coating fibers were evaluated for their extraction efficiency to the target analytes and the carbowax/templated resin (CW/TPR) coating fiber was found to be the best one. The parameters affecting the extraction efficiency, such as absorption time, extraction temperature, pH values of the sample solutions, agitating rate, salting-out effect, desorption mode, composition of the desorption eluent, and the flow rate of mobile phase at the desorption stage, were investigated and optimized. The chromatographic conditions were also examined. The developed method has been used to determine bisphenol A, 4-n-nonylphenol and 4-tert-octylphenol in several spiked natural water samples and good recovery results (93.9-108.2%) were obtained. Detection limits of 0.43, 0.16, and 0.29 ngmL(-1) for bisphenol A, 4-n-nonylphenol, and 4-tert-octylphenol, respectively, were achieved under the optimized conditions.