Determination of chlorobenzidines, in industrial effluent by solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography with electrochemical and mass spectrometric detection

The analysis of chloroanilines in industrial effluents is severely complicated by the total organic content (TOC) (10-100 mg/l) and high particle content, which reflects the presence of many compounds other than the analytes of interest. Therefore, both the extraction procedure and the application of a selective and sensitive detection technique are important. Five different polymeric solid-phase extraction cartridges were tested to extract chloroanilines and benzidines from Milli-Q and industrial effluent waters. The analyses were performed by liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection and with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry in positive ionization mode. These techniques were used to detect several mono- and dichloroanilines in industrial effluents, which had a TOC between 1 and 70 mg/l. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.