Determination Of 1,4-Dioxane In Water Samples Using Freeze-Assisted Liquid-Liquid Extraction And Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry With Select Reaction Monitoring

In this study, we developed an analytical method for the determination of 1,4-dioxane in aqueous solutions using freeze-assisted liquid-liquid extraction, also known as frozen microextraction, and gas chromatography with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry with select reaction monitoring. The method is capable of quantifying 1,4-dioxane across a broad range of concentrations (1-10 000 mu g/L) relevant to contaminated sites, with an instrument detection limit and method detection limit experimentally verified as 2.1 and 2.2 mu g/L, respectively. In contrast to methods with similar detection limits that require 50 to 500 mL volume of sample, our method uses only 200 mu L of sample. The method presented here facilitates field and laboratory applications where small sample volumes and high precision are required and could be extended to other strongly water-soluble GC-amenable analytes.