Abstract:

A method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of six estrogens (estriol, 17-β-estradiol, 17-α-estradiol, estrone, ethinyloestradiol, diethylstilbestrol) in water environment by solid phase extraction and ultra performance liquid chromatography couple with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. After enriched and purified by an HLB solid phase extraction column, the six estrogens were separated by a BEH C18 column and then determined by MS/MS with multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The quantification was achieved by internal standard method, with estriol-D3, estradiol-D2 and diethylstilbestrol-D8 as the internal standards. Good linear relationships were obtained in the mass concentration range of 1.0-100 μg/L with high correlation coefficients over 0.9982. The limits of detection and quantification for the six estrogens were 0.27-0.45 ng/L and 1.08-1.78 ng/L, respectively. The recoveries were in the range of 68.3%-97.4% at the three spiked levels and with the relative standard deviations below 15%. The method shows high sensitivity, good precision, extensive analytical range and high analytical speed. It was successfully applied to the simultaneous detection of the six estrogens in four different water bodies including surface water, waste water, source water of drinking and domestic water.

Key words: estrogens, solid phase extraction (SPE), ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS), water bodies