Simultaneous determination of tetrabromobisphenol A, tetrachlorobisphenol A, bisphenol A and other halogenated analogues in sediment and sludge by high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry

A high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray (negative) ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI(−)-MS-MS) based method has been developed for simultaneous determination of bisphenol A (BPA), tetrachlorobisphenol A (TCBPA), and tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), as well as lower brominated BPA analogues in sediment and sludge samples. Samples were extracted with MTBE, target compounds were partitioned by aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide. The solution was subsequently acidified, and the enrichment and desalting were performed via solid phase extraction (SPE). After cleanup the target compounds were determined by HPLC-ESI(−)-MS-MS. The method limits of quantification (MLOQs) from sediment and sludge for BPA, monobromo-bisphenol A (mono-BBPA), dibromo-bisphenol A (di-BBPA), tribromo-bisphenol A (tri-BBPA), TBBPA and TCBPA were 0.15, 0.02, 0.02, 0.04, 0.05, and 0.03 ng/g (dry weight), respectively. Mean recovery of the analytes from spiked samples ranged from 70 to 105%, and the relative standard deviation ranged from 4.9 to 13.1%. The method was successfully applied to sediment and sludge samples analysis.