Development of EPA Method 535 for the Determination of Chloroacetanilide and Other Acetamide Herbicide Degradates in DrinkingWater by Solid-Phase Extraction and Liquid Chromatography/TandemMass Spectrometry
Abstract U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Method 535 has been developed in order to provide a method for the analysis of Alachlor ESA and other acetanilide degradation products, which are listed on EPA's 1998 Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List. Method 535 uses solid-phase extraction with a nonporous graphitized carbon sorbent to extract the ethane sulfonic acid (ESA) and oxanilic acid degradates of propachlor, flufenacet, dimethenamid, alachlor, acetochlor, and metolachlor from finished drinking water matrixes. Separation and quantitation of the target analytes are achieved with liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. Dimethachlor ESA and butachlor ESA were chosen during the method development as the surrogate and internal standard. Drinking water samples were dechlorinated with ammonium chloride without adversely affecting the analyte recoveries. Typical mean recoveries of 92116% in deionized water and 89116% in ground water were observed with relative standard deviations of <5%.