Analysis of potassium formate in airport storm water runoff by headspace solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Potassium formate was extracted from airport storm water runoff by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and analyzed by GC–MS. Formate was transformed to formic acid by adding phosphoric acid. Subsequently, formic acid was derivatized to methyl formate by adding methanol. Using sodium [2H]formate (formate-d) as an internal standard, the relative standard deviation of the peak area ratio of formate (m/z 60) and formate-d (m/z 61) was 0.6% at a concentration of 208.5 mg L−1. Calibration was linear in the range of 0.5–208.5 mg L−1. The detection limit calculated considering the blank value was 0.176 mg L−1. The mean concentration of potassium formate in airport storm water runoff collected after surface de-icing operations was 86.9 mg L−1 (n = 11) with concentrations ranging from 15.1 mg L−1 to 228.6 mg L−1.