Simultaneous determination of benzothiazoles, benzotriazoles and benzotriazole UV absorbers by solid-phase extraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Abstract This paper proposes a new method for the simultaneous determination of emerging contaminants (ECS) in the marine environment by solid-phase extraction (SPE)-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Organic corrosion inhibitors (OCI) and UV absorbers are common products in plastic rubber and personal care products, and they have been acknowledged as emerging contaminants due to their toxicity and bio-accumulative effects in the environment. In addition to common persistent organic pollutants (POPs), it is also necessary to detect and analyze the concentration and composition of these emerging organic contaminants in the ocean. Solid-phase extraction (SPE) and solid-phase microextraction (SPME) were used as two common pretreatment methods. After comparing their recoveries, SPE was used for treatment, and the conditions such as SPE cartridge, extraction solvent, extraction time, pH and elution solvent were optimized. The method was applied to determine the concentrations of these contaminants in seawater and sediments from the Yangtze River Estuary and its adjacent areas with a precision of about 10% and recoveries in the range of 67.40%-102.3% and 77.35%-101.8%, respectively. The detection limits of this method for the determination of contaminants in seawater and sediment were 0.03-0.47 ng/g and 0.01-0.58 ng/g. The method is simple to operate and has high precision, and can be applied to the detection of emerging pollutant concentrations in marine environments.