Pre-Concentration of Trace Bisphenol A in Seawater by Microextraction Flask and Determination by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

A simple and sensitive analytical method using microextraction flask coupled to high performance liquid chromatography has been developed for the determination of bisphenol A (BPA) in seawater. For good separation and detection of BPA, a C18 column (5μm, 250 × 4.6mm i.d.) was used at 30°C with detection wavelength at 227nm; The mobile phase was a mixture of acetonitrile, methanol and water (the ratio of volume was 20:43:37), flow rate was 1.0mL/min. BPA in seawater was pre-concentrated by a microextraction procedure using a microextraction flask. The optimal extraction conditions: volume of seawater was 400mL; extraction solvent was 1.2mL n-octanol; extraction time was 12min. The detection limit obtained by this method was 0.03μg/L, which was more than 300-times lower than the detection limit obtained by the ultraviolet (UV) detector. The BPA recoveries of simulated seawater for 1.0 and 10.0μg/L level were 86.5 and 83.1%, and the relative standard deviations (RSDs) were 0.9 and 5.4%, respectively.