On-line monitoring trihalomethanes in chlorinated water by membrane introduction–fast gas chromatography mass–spectrometry

An analytical method based on membrane introduction and fast gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) has been developed for the on-line monitoring of trihalomethanes (THMs) in chlorinated drinking water. The coupling of membrane introduction with fast GC–MS offers the advantage of membrane introduction as an on-line sampling device and fast GC–MS as a separation and identification method. While maintaining the on-line monitoring characteristic of traditional membrane introduction mass spectrometry (MIMS), the difficulty of distinguishing CHCl3 and CHBrCl2 in MIMS was overcome by rapid GC separation and MS analysis. Water permeated across the membrane affected the analysis of CHBr2Cl and CHBr3. A method based on controlling the injection temperature and injection time has been developed to overcome the moisture problem. This method is simple and less time consuming than the conventional moisture removing method. Under typical operating conditions, the sampling rate was about 20 samples h−1 capable of on-line monitoring THMs in chlorinated drinking water. The detection limits of this system were found to be about 2 ppt, 4 ppt, 4 ppt, and 8 ppt for CHCl3, CHBrCl2, CHBr2Cl, and CHBr3, respectively.