A simple and automated method to determine macrocyclic musk fragrances in sewage sludge samples by headspace solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

For the first time, headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) has shown to be a powerful technique to extract macrocyclic musk fragrances directly from sewage sludge. It avoids the need to use additional extraction/preconcentration techniques or clean-up procedure and facilitates the automation of the method. Thus, a simple and fully automated method based on HS-SPME and GC-MS has been developed which allows the determination of eight macrocyclic musk fragrances at ngg(-1) (d.w.) levels. The optimal HS-SPME conditions were achieved when a PDMS/DVB 65μm fibre was exposed for 45min in the headspace of 0.25g sewage sludge samples mixed with 0.5mL of water stirred at 750rpm at 80°C. Optimal desorption conditions were found to be 250°C for 3min. Method detection limits were found in the low pgg(-1) range between 10pgg(-1) (d.w.) and 25pgg(-1) (d.w.) depending on the target analytes. In addition, under optimized conditions, the method gave good levels of intra-day and inter-day repeatabilities in sewage sludge with relative standard deviations varying between 1% to 9% and 6% to 15% respectively (n=5, 1000pgg(-1) d.w.). The applicability of the method was tested with sewage sludge from three urban sewage treatment plants (STPs). The analysis revealed the presence of the macrocyclic musks studied in several samples, with concentrations ranging between below MQL (method quantification limit) and 0.89ngg(-1) (d.w.).