Determination of bisphenol A in sewage effluent and sludge by solid-phase and supercritical fluid extraction and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

Abstract

Methods have been developed for the determination of bisphenol A (BPA) residues in municipal sewage and sludge samples. BPA in wastewater samples was enriched with a C18 solid-phase extraction cartridge, eluted with acetone, and converted to the pentafluoropropionyl derivative. For sludge samples, BPA was acetylated and extracted with supercritical carbon dioxide. In both cases, BPA-d16 was used as a surrogate to monitor extraction efficiency. Final analyses of derivatized sample extracts were performed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry operating in the electron impact mode. For water samples, mean recoveries and standard deviations were 89 ± 6, 94 ± 4, and 85 ± 7% at fortification levels of 1, 0.1, and 0.025 μg/L, respectively, with a method detection limit of 0.006 μg/L. For solid waste samples, mean recoveries and standard deviations were 93 ± 5 and 92 ± 6% at fortification levels of 2.5 and 0.25 μg/g, respectively, and the method detection limit was 0.05 μg/g. For the Canadian samples under investigation, concentrations of BPA ranged from 49.9 to 0.031 μg/L in sewage influent and effluent, and from 36.7 to 0.104 μg/g in sludge.