Abstract: A new method for the determination of tetraethyllead (TEL) in water by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) has been developed. The TEL in water samples (200 mL) was extracted with hexane (50 mL) by adding 20 g NaCl, then the extracted solution was concentrated into 1.0 mL and the internal standard (naphthalene-d8) solution was added to every concentrated solution. The pretreated samples were analyzed by GC-MS. An amount of 1.0 μL solution was injected onto an HP-5ms capillary column (30 m×0.25 mm×0.25 μm) and determined by GC-MS in selected ion monitoring (SIM). The selected monitoring ions were m/z 136, 236, 237, 294 and 295. The m/z 295 was selected as quantitative ion for TEL and m/z 136 for the internal standard. The method had good linearity over the tested concentration range of 0.02~0.40 mg/L (r=0.9998) for TEL. The analytical performance characteristics of the proposed procedure were as follows: the detection limit for TEL in 200 mL water sample was 0.04 μg/L. The average recoveries and the relative standard deviations of TEL were 92.2%~103% and less than 13.3%, respectively. The method is rapid, convenient and accurate for the determination of water samples.

Key words: tetraethyllead, water, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)