The development of a rapid method for the determination of perchlorate in rain and drinking waters is presented. In the optimised method, an on-line preconcentration technique was employed utilising a 10 mm × 4.6 mm Phenomenex Onyx monolithic guard cartridge coated with (N-dodecyl-N,N-dimethylammonio)undecanoate for selective preconcentration, with subsequent elution into a fixed volume injection loop ('heart-cut' of the concentrator column eluate) and separation using an IonPac AS16 (250 mm × 2 mm) anion exchange column and a potassium hydroxide concentration gradient. Off-line optimisation studies showed that the coated monolith displayed near quantitative recovery up to 50 μg/L perchlorate level from standards prepared in reagent water. On-line preconcentration of perchlorate obtained detection limits down to 56 ng/L in reagent water, between 70 and 80 ng/L in rainwater samples and 2.5 μg/L in non-pretreated drinking water. After an additional sample sulphate/carbonate removal step, low ng/L perchlorate concentrations could also be observed in drinking water. The complete on-line method exhibited reproducibility for n = 10 replicate runs of R.S.D. ≤ 3% for peak height/area and R.S.D. = 0.08% for retention time. The optimised method, of 20 min total duration, was applied to the determination of perchlorate by standard addition in 10 rainwater samples and one drinking water sample. Concentrations of perchlorate present ranged from below the detection limit for four rainwater samples, with another three samples showing perchlorate present at between 70 and 100 ng/L, and one sample showing perchlorate present at 2.8 μg/L. Levels of 1.1 μg/L in the drinking water sample were also recorded. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Physical Sciences
Research Group:	Optical Physics
Research Field:	Photonics, Optoelectronics and Optical Communications
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding Knowledge in the Chemical Sciences
Author:	Nesterenko, PN (Professor Pavel Nesterenko)
Author:	Paull, B (Professor Brett Paull)
ID Code:	47762
Year Published:	2006
Web of Science® Times Cited:	25
Deposited By:	Chemistry
Deposited On:	2007-09-20
Last Modified:	2011-08-18
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