Determination of Four Phthalate Esters in Surface Water by Solid-Phase Extraction and Simplified Mobile Phase HPLC

We developed a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for determination of dimethyl phthalate (DMP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and dioctyl phthalate (DOP) after concentration by solid-phase extraction (SPE). This HPLC method utilized a simple mobile phase of 100 % methanol on a Diamonsil™ C₁₈ column, and resulted in rapid (<;8 min) separation of the analytes. The limits of quantification were: DMP 0.010 ng mL^-1 DBP 0.025 ng mL^-1 DEHP 0.035 ng mL^-1 and DOP 0.040 ng mL^-1. Their Recoveries ranged from 93.2-98.5 %. The proposed SPE-HPLC method could be used for the determination of PAEs in surface water.