A New Method for Determination of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) in Water Samples by Switchable Hydrophilicity Solvent Based Homogenous Liquid-Liquid Microextraction Combined with GC-MS

Herein, a simple, rapid, and efficient method based on pH assisted homogenous liquid-liquid microextraction was combined with gas chromatography- mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to do trace analysis of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in water samples. Triethylamine (TEA) was used as a switchable hydrophilicity solvent which can be miscible/immiscible with aqueous sample by varying the pH of the sample solution. In this regard, the effects of various parameters were explored on the extraction performance of PCBs. Detection limits, quantification limits and linear dynamic ranges were equal to 0.15 μg L-1, 0.5 μg L-1 and 0.5-150 μg L-1 respectively. The RSDs% (n = 3) were in the range of 5.2-6.4 and 5.6-7.2 for intra-day and inter-day assays, respectively. Ultimately, the method was employed for determination of PCBs in water samples.