Determination of short chain chlorinated paraffins in water by stir bar sorptive extraction-thermal desorption-gas chromatography-triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry

•A simple novel environment friendly method for the analysis of SCCPs in water.•The method is non-laborious and showing good performance characteristics.•The method enables compliance checking with EQS for SCCPs in surface waters.

A simple, robust, sensitive and environment friendly method for the determination of short chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) in water using stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) coupled to thermal desorption-gas chromatography-triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (TD-GC-QqQ-MS/MS) was developed. SBSE was performed using 100 mL of water sample, 20 mL of methanol as a modifier, and a commercial sorptive stir bar (with 10 mm × 0.5 mm PDMS layer) during extraction period of 16 h. After extraction, the sorptive stir bar was thermally desorbed and online analysed by GC-MS/MS. Method performance was evaluated for MilliQ and surface water spiked samples. For both types of matrices, a linear dynamic range of 0.5-3.0 μg L−1 with correlation coefficients >0.999 and relative standard deviations (RSDs) of the relative response factors (RRFs) <12% was established. The limits of quantification (LOQs) of 0.06 and 0.08 μg L−1, and the precision (repeatability) of 6.4 and 7.7% (RSDs) were achieved for MilliQ and surface water, respectively. The method also showed good robustness, recovery and accuracy. The obtained performance characteristics indicate that the method is suitable for screening and monitoring and compliance checking with environmental quality standards (EQS, set by the EU) for SCCPs in surface waters.