AWWA WQTC62560

The monitoring of volatile and semi-volatile compounds could demand extra laboratory facility, labor, and instrumentations to meet the up-coming State and Federal requirements. The proposed extraction and determination technique is an automated solvent less extraction and less expensive ion trap mass spectrometry for sub part per trillion level detection of less volatile contaminants found in many urban well systems. The future monitoring direction recommended by the environmental agencies requires sub part per trillion concentrations of 1,2,3-trichloropropane (1,2,3- TCP), 1,2-dibromo-3-chloro-propane (DBCP), 1,2-dibromomethane (EDB), which currently determined by the micro-extraction and an electron capture detector (ECD). The interference of chlorinated species including trihalomethanes caused improper identification and quantitation of sub ppt levels of 1,2, 3-TCP, DBCP and EDB by the conventional gas chromatography detector such as an ECD. Also the purity of the extracting solvent; hexane was the source of contamination for the trace analysis of these compounds. Orange County Water District (OCWD) has developed the modified purge-trap and ion trap mass spectrometry technique for the analysis of 1,4-dioxane due to the increased importance of monitoring 1,4-dioxane in the treated wastewater and the groundwater recharge facilities. The modified purge-trap technique was successfully applied to extract the additional compounds and ion trap mass spectrometry was optimized to detect sub part per trillion levels of these compounds and 1,4-dioxane simultaneously. The modified purge-trap and ion trap mass spectrometry could be utilized to improve sensitivity and selectivity of these compounds without any organic solvent involved in the extraction process. The solvent less and automated purge-trap technique reduced labor and increased productivity of the sample analysis. Recently, the established method provided tremendous productivity to monitor less volatile organic compounds from the reverse osmosis (RO) and micro-membrane effluent of the secondary treated wastewater, which could not easily determined by the current US Environmental Protection Agency method 524.2 and 504.1. Includes 12 references, tables,.