Phenols can be extracted using retention-time-locked gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and polystyrene-divinylbenzene as an absorbent material
Agilent Technologies Europe has announced a fast approach for extracting trace-level amounts of phenols - a class of toxic organic compounds - in water.
Using a polymer resin designed specifically for environmental applications, this method provides fast analysis with a precision greater than 5% and accuracy greater than 8% for most phenols.
Moreover, the procedure reduces drying time to two minutes, compared to 20 minutes specified in the recent US EPA method for phenols, Method 528.
Over the last decade, a large number of solid-phase extraction (SPE) applications have been developed for compounds found in environmental samples, particularly for harmful compounds at trace levels in drinking water.
The major focus has been on non-polar, strongly hydrophobic analytes, as these were good candidates for SPE.
Compounds that are more polar, such as phenols, have been more challenging to concentrate.
Phenol, for example, typically exhibits low and irreproducible recoveries. Agilent has demonstrated that phenol and other environmentally important substituted phenols can be extracted from water samples confidently, accurately and reproducibly using retention-time-locked gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and polystyrene-divinylbenzene as an absorbent material.
Recently, Agilent expanded its offering of solid-phase extraction products to include this polystyrene-divinylbenzene SPE cartridge optimised for increased recovery of the more difficult analytes in water, such as phenol.
For further information, request application note 'Solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis of selected phenols', publication number 5988-5255EN.
This note is available without charge from any Agilent sales office or its website.