Determination of monochloroacetic acid, dichloroacetic acid and monobromoacetic acid in chlorinated water by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Haloacetic Acids (HAAs) are a group of disinfection by-products (DBPs) that produced when chlorine or other disinfectants used to control microbial contaminants in drinking water. HAAs react with naturally occurring organic and inorganic matter in the water and have been linked to possible human health effects [1, 2].In this study, a sensitive and specific method was developed for simultaneously analyzing three HAAs including, monochloroacetic acid (MCAA), dichloroacetic acid (DCAA), monobromoacetic acid (MBAA) in chlorinated water using liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) by applying a C8 RP-LC column without the use of ion-pairing reagents and sample concentration. Samples were removed of residual chlorine by adding L-ascorbic acid, and directly injected after filtered by membrane. Three HAAs were separated by liquid chromatography in 5 min, and the limits of detection were 8.3 µg/L, 0.5 µg/L and 0.95 µg/L for MCAA, DCAA and MBAA, respectively.