Determination of phenyl-N-methylcarbamates and their hydrolysis products in water, using solid-phase extraction and reversed-phase liquid chromatography with UV and electrospray mass spectrometric detection

In this study, eight phenyl-N-methylcarbamates (PNMCs) were considered. Reversed-phase LC was set up for UV and mass spectrometry (MS) detection mode. Gradient elution was used, and the mobile phase was composed of acetonitrile and water. UV-vis was performed at 220 nm. The method was tested with different reversed-phase columns. Comparison between chromatographic parameters: retention time (t(R)), resolution (R-S), and selectivity (alpha) was established. Hydrolysis kinetics of three of the PNMCs were reported. The major hydrolysis products were determined by LC-UV, and the effect of pH on hydrolysis was also studied. Also, chromatographic separation of a mixture of PNMCs and four of their hydrolysis products was carried out. The preconcentration of 12 studied solutes was realized by solid-phase extraction. C18 extraction cartridges of 1 g were used to extract solutes from a 100 mL volume of tap and surface water spiked at 10 mug/L. The recoveries were, respectively, between 68-86% and 62-83% with relative a standard deviation of less than 11%. Limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantitation (LOQs) ranged, respectively, from 1-4 mug/L and from 4-10 mug/L. Since standard UV detection does not provide adequate selectivity for water samples, an electrospray (ES)-MS instrument equipped with a triple quadrupole mass filter was used. MS data acquisition was performed by a time-scheduled, selected-ion monitoring (SIM) program. Limits of quantitation gave values between 0.1-0.5 mug/L.