Simultaneous Determination of 10 Phenolic Compounds in Air by High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A method for the simultaneous determination of 10 phenolic compounds, including phenol, 4-nitrophenol, 3-cresol, 2-chlorophenol, 2, 4-xylenol, 2, 4-dichlorophenol, 2, 4, 6-trichlorophenol, pentachlorophenol, 1-naphthol and 2-naphthol in air by high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was proposed. XAD-7 sampling tube was used for sampling, and methanol was used for elution. The eluent (2.0 mL) was collected, and an aliquot (0.5 mL) was taken. Then its volume was made up to 1.0 mL with water, and the mixed solution was filtered by 0.22 μm filter membrane. Kinetex C₁₈ chromatographic column was used as the stationary phase, and the mixed solutions composed of methanol and water at different volume ratios was used as the mobile phase for gradient elution. The separated phenolic compounds were ionized by atmospheric pressure chemical ionization source, detected by multi-reaction monitoring mode, and quantified by external standard method. It was shown that the linear ranges of the standard curves for 10 phenolic compounds were 10-1 000 μg·L^-1, with detection limits (3.143s) in the range of 0.2-1.7 μg·m^-3. Test for recovery was made on the blank sample at 3 concentration levels, giving results in the range of 69.3%-102%, and RSDs of the determined values (n=6) ranged from 1.1% to 9.6%. The method was applied to analyze 10 actual air samples, among which 3 samples detected phenol with the mass concentrations in the range of 23.3-40.2 μg·m^-3.