Trace-level screening of dichlorophenols in processed dairy milk by headspace gas chromatography

A headspace gas chromatographic approach based on flame ionization detection has been successfully developed for the determination of parts-per-billion levels of 2,4-dichlorophenol and 2,6-dichlorophenol in processed dairy milk. Under the right environmental conditions, these compounds are produced as products of the reductive dechlorination of pentachlorophenol. Maintaining a highly inert chromatographic system and employing a recently commercialized inert capillary column permits the analysis of 2,4-dichlorophenol and 2,6-dichlorophenol without derivatization. Further, a detection limit improvement of more than a factor of two was achieved by adding sodium sulfate to substantially decrease the solute partition coefficient in the matrix. A detection limit of 1 ng/g and a limit of quantitation of 2 ng/g were attained, and complete analysis can be conducted in < 13 min. Reproducibility of area counts over a range from 20 to 200 ng/g and over a period of 2 days were found to be less than 6% (n = 20). A linear range from 5 to 500 ng/g with a correlation coefficient of at least 0.9992 was obtained for 2,4-dichlorophenol and 2,6-dichlorophenol. Spike recoveries from 10 to 500 ng/g for all the analytes range from 92 to 102%.