Scholars Day: April 11, 2012

Analysis of Drinking Water for Trihalomethanes by Membrane-Introduction GC-MS

Chlorination is one of the most widely used and successful drinking water disinfection processes in the world; however it forms halogenated disinfection by-products, such as trihalomethanes (THMs), which are considered to be possible carcinogens and precursors of more toxic compounds. The purpose of this research was to develop and optimize a relatively inexpensive and solvent free membrane-based GC-MS method for the analysis of drinking water for THMs. Several parameters, such as purge time and injection port temperature were optimized. Studies were also performed to determine a suitable internal standard compound for the developed method. Drinking water samples collected at The College at Brockport, SUNY had total THM concentrations between 50 to 60 μg L-1. The average method detection limit, accuracy, and precision values were less than 2.0 μg L-1, 117%, and 8.2% respectively. Additional drinking water samples were analyzed from Tennessee and Texas to evaluate the performance of the method in varied water matrices.

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