The artificial sweetener sucralose (commercialized as Splenda�) has recently gained considerable interest as an indicator of human waste pollution because of its widespread consumption and extraordinary environmental persistence. In this work, a cost effective and high throughput Online SPE-LC-HRMS methodology that enables quantitation of sucralose at low ng/L levels in a wide range of complex water matrices is presented. The methodology was tested with surface water, drinking water, wastewater, wastewater treatment plant effluents and salt waters. The only sample preparation step involves fortification with sucralose-d6 as internal standard. Preconcentration was performed by a Thermo EQuan MAX Plus Online SPE system equipped with a Hypersep Retain PEP� (20 mm � 2.1 mm, 12 �m) loading column. Analytical separations were carried out using a Hypersil Gold column (50 � 2.1 mm, 3 �m) using a gradient elution with acetonitrile and ammonium buffer (pH 9.5). Detection was performed in a Q Exactive hybrid Quatrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometer using a heated electrospray (HESI) interface operating in the negative mode. The combination of high resolving power (R=140000), retention time match and chlorine isotopic pattern (100: 100: 30 for [M-H]-, [M-H+2]- and for [M-H+4]-, respectively) was employed for unequivocal identification. Method detection limits for a sample size of 10 mL were under 2 ng/L in deionized and salt waters. This high throughput method is applicable to most water sample types at low ng/L levels, carries very low operating cost due to virtually no sample preparation and therefore could represent an alternative tool for detection of human waste pollution of water bodies to protect public health.

Cost effective and high throughput Online SPE-LC-HRMS method for ultra-trace level quantitation of sucralose in aqueous matrices

248th National Meeting (2014)

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