Application of electro-enhanced solid phase microextraction combined with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry for the determination of tricyclic antidepressants in environmental water samples

• Electro-enhanced SPME was developed for the determination of TCAs.
• The extraction efficiency was enhanced by the external electrical field, significantly reducing the extraction time.
• The extraction was performed under a relatively low voltage.
• This method was simple, efficient with satisfactory LODs, repeatability and linearity.

A fast and efficient method for the determination of tricyclic antidepressants using electro-enhanced solid phase microextraction (SPME) coupled to gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) has been developed. One advantage of this approach is that the mass transfer of target analytes from the sample solution to an SPME fiber can be accelerated by the electrical field, improving extraction selectivity and efficiency. In the present work, the target analytes extracted to the SPME fiber were thermally desorbed in the GC injection port after extraction. Under the optimized extraction conditions, the developed method exhibited low limits of detection (between 0.079 and 0.296 μg/L) and good linearity over the concentration range of between 1 and 500 μg/L with coefficients of determination (r2) of between 0.993 and 0.999. The relative standard deviations were lower than 9.2% for all analytes. The proposed method was applied to extract tricyclic antidepressants in environmental water samples.