Comparison of gas- and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry for trace analysis of anilines in groundwater

Three chromatographic procedures were investigated regarding their potential for the quantification of aniline and 19 its methylated chlorinated derivatives in groundwater. These methods based on liquid-liquid-extraction combination with gas chromatography single quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC/MS) according to German standard DIN 38407–16:1999 extension using tandem (GC/MS-MS), both following liquid–liquid extraction, as third alternative direct injection water sample into a liquid chromatograph coupled (LC/MS-MS). Results compared fortified real-world contaminated groundwater used an interlaboratory comparison. It could be shown that GC/MS GC/MS-MS yielded results deviating less than 10% from each other, while all three displayed 15% intercomparison reference values case analyte concentration range between 1 45 µg L−1. Though displays ten-fold higher sensitivity GC/MS, precision was similar. LC/MS-MS has advantage no further preparation due leads methylanilines meta-, para-substituted chloroanilines sufficiently equivalent standardised method. However, is not suitable ortho-chloroaniline significantly lower ion yields meta- chloroanilines.