Analysis of organophosphate flame retardants and plasticisers in water by isotope dilution gas chromatography–electron ionisation tandem mass spectrometry

• Analysis of five organophosphate flame retardants using GC–MS/MS.
• Direct isotope dilute for each target compounds was utilised.
• MDLs for all target compounds ranged between 0.3 and 24 ng/L.
• Method was validated in various aquatic environmental matrices.

The widespread use of organophosphate flame retardants (PFRs) in commercial products have led to their increased presence in the environment. In this study, a rapid and reliable analytical method was developed for the analysis of five PFRs in water using gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (GC–MS/MS) with electron ionisation (EI) and a run time of 13 min. The PFRs investigated were tributyl phosphate (TBP), tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP), tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCPP), tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCP) and triphenyl phosphate (TPP). Solid phase extraction (SPE) was undertaken to extract and concentrate target analytes from aqueous matrices. All water samples were extracted from a volume of 500 mL. Isotopically labelled compounds were used to account for analytical variability and for accurate quantification by isotope dilution. Method recoveries for all compounds were above 80% in all tested water samples. Method detection limits for all target analytes ranged from 0.3 to 24 ng/L in ultrapure water, tap water, seawater, surface water, secondary effluent and swimming pool water. Validation of this method confirmed satisfactory method stability with less than 1% coefficients of variation, verifying that this approach produced good reproducibility.

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