EPA Method 538: Determination of Selected Organic Contaminants in Drinking Water by Direct Aqueous Injection with the Agilent 6460 Triple Quadrupole LC/MS System

A new method from the U.S. EPA (538) on 11 selected organic contaminants in drinking water by direct aqueous injection liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry has been developed using UHPLC and the Agilent Model 6460 Triple Quadrupole LC/MS System. One advantage of the EPA method is that solid phase extraction is no longer needed for sample preparation. This means that the analysis time is reduced by at least half. Furthermore, run time was cut by almost two-thirds by the use of UHPLC, and the method provided excellent linearity (R2≥0.9999) for all analytes, with limits of detection from 1 to 500 ng/L.