Screening and Quantification of Organic Pollutants in Soil Using Comprehensive Two-dimensional Gas Chromatography with Time-of-flight Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

The identification and quantification of organic compounds in leaching basin soil is important for the evaluation of soil pollution. In this study, a non-target screening strategy and a quantitative analytical method were developed based on the accelerated solvent extraction method followed by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with time-of-flight mass spectrometry. First, a screening method for potential risk compounds in soil samples was established, and the major compounds were screened under the conditions such as matching similarity, signal-to-noise ratio, and relative area ratio. Second, a quantitative method was further developed by internal calibration curves for 50 main organic pollutants in the soil samples, including 27 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their derivatives (PAHs), 10 phthalic acid esters, eight phenolic compounds, and five benzene derivatives. The quantitative procedure exhibited good selectivity, accuracy, precision, low limits of detection (0.03–1.02 ng/g), and quantification (0.1–3.0 ng/g) for all target compounds. Finally, the proposed strategy was applied to the soil samples that were collected from a leaching basin and polluted by electroplating wastewater. Abundant PAHs and phenolic compounds were detected in the topsoil sample, which were mainly released from the electroplating wastewater. The application of this multi-dimensional strategy in leaching basin soil samples can also be used for the assessment of organic pollution in other complex soil samples.