Validation of stir bar sorptive extraction for the determination of 24 priority substances from the European Water Framework Directive in estuarine and sea water

This paper describes the validation of a method for the determination of 24 priority substances from the European Framework Directive in estuarine and sea water using the new extraction technique known as stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE), followed by thermal desorption using capillary gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. We studied linearity, detection and quantitation limits and accuracy (which includes determination of trueness and precision). Using the lack-of-fit method we tested linearity in the 0–200 ng L−1 range for all the priority substances. The detection and quantification limits were less than 5 and 10 ng L−1, respectively, for most of the compounds studied. Precision was assessed by variance analysis (ANOVA) and relative standard values of less than 10% were obtained for repeatability and less than 15% for intermediate precision. The recovery percentages in spiked estuarine and sea water were close to 100%. Finally, for quality control of the method (stability of precision and accuracy through time), we developed a method for calculating Shewhart control charts based on the information obtained in the validation process.