Abstract: A rapid and effective gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry method has been developed systematically and studied for the simultaneous determination of 10 organotin compounds, dibutyltin-dichloride (DBT), n-butyltin-trichloride (MBT), triethyltinchloride (TET), fentin-chloride (TPhT), chlorotributylstannane (TBT), tri-n-propyltinchloride (TPrT), diphenyltin-dichloride (DPhT), tetrabutyltin (TeBT), di-n-octyltin-dichloride (DOT), phenyltin trichloride (MPhT)), in polyvinyl chloride （PVC） plastics. The PVC sample was dissolved with tetrahydrofuran and the polymer in the sample was precipitated with methanol, and then the target compounds were derivatized with sodium tetraethylborate and extracted with hexane under ultrasonication. The qualitative and quantitative analysis were carried out by GC-MS and the total ion chromatogram and selected ion chromatogram were obtained. The derivatization and extraction conditions, such as the derivatization time, derivatization pH value, dosages of derivatization reagent and precipitation reagent were optimized. The good linearities, recoveries and precisions were obtained. The linearity ranges were 0.5-50 mg/L. The linearity correlation coefficients of 10 organotin compounds were between 0.9978 and 0.9997. The average recoveries were 84.23%-109.1% with relative standard deviations of 4.24%-10.75%. The established method has been successfully applied to the determination of organotin compounds in PVC plastics.

Key words: organotin compounds, polyvinyl chloride plastics , gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)