On-line solid phase extraction fast liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry for the analysis of bisphenol A and its chlorinated derivatives in water samples

In this study an on-line column-switching fast LC–MS/MS method was developed to analyze bisphenol A (BPA) and its chlorinated derivatives in water. Fast liquid chromatographic separation was performed on a C18 reversed phase column based on fused-core particle technology (2.7 μm particle size) providing analysis times shorter than 3 min and high peak efficiencies. The main benefit of this LC system is that it can easily be hyphenated to a conventional on-line preconcentration device allowing the direct analysis of water samples without any pretreatment at concentrations levels down to 60 ng L−1 and preventing contaminations frequently reported in the analysis of BPA. This on-line SPE fast LC system was coupled to a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer operating in enhanced mass resolution mode (Q1 FWHM = 0.7 Th, Q3 FWHM = 0.1 Th) in order to minimize interferences and chemical noise. This highly sensitive and selective method was successfully employed to analyze BPA and its chlorinated derivatives in water samples.