Stir bar sorptive extraction for the determination of pyrethroids in water samples: A comparison between thermal desorption in a dedicated thermal desorber, in a split/splitless inlet and by liquid desorption

Stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) was applied to the enrichment of pyrethroids in water samples. Analysis was done by retention time-locked GC/MS in selected ion-monitoring (SIM) mode using trans-permethrin-d6 as internal standard. Thermal desorption (TD) was performed in a classical split/splitless inlet equipped with a flip-top sealing system and in a dedicated thermal desorption unit. These two thermal desorption methods were compared to liquid desorption with ethyl acetate. Sensitivity was the highest for thermal desorption in the dedicated system and the lowest for liquid desorption even at injection volumes of 10 μL. The SBSE-TD-GC/MS method is able to determine pyrethroids at ultra-trace level (<1 ng/L) with RSD% smaller than 15 (n = 6).