A multi-residue method for the analysis of semi-volatile organic pollutants in inland groundwater (river water) at ultra-trace levels in compliance with the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) has been developed and validated by stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) and thermal desorption coupled with gas chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (SBSE-TD-GC-MS/MS(QqQ)). The method includes various families of compounds included in the WFD and other compounds listed as persistent organic pollutants that are banned in the Stockholm Convention of Persistent Organic Pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, polycyclic aromatics hydrocarbons, and other pesticides not included in the WFD. The method also can be applied for compliance with regional environmental laws. Extraction conditions were optimised in order to analyse simultaneously analytes with very different polarities and octanol-water partition coefficients, which is an important parameter in the optimisation of a SBSE method. The quantification limits (LOQs) obtained ranged from 0.14 to 10 ng L(-1), lower that others presented in previous publications, and complies with the requirement for analytical methods to be used in the analysis of the compounds included in the WFD. Several quality parameters as linearity, trueness and precision were studied with good results, and also uncertainty was estimated. The WFD requires that the level of uncertainty must be lower than 50%, and this requirement was met for all compounds. Precision (in terms of RSD) was lower than 30%, recoveries ranged between 74 and 111%, and determination coefficients were higher than 0.990 for all analytes. Different factors that affect the SBSE procedure were optimised. GC-MS/MS parameters have also been revised. The accuracy of the method was tested participating in a proficiency testing scheme for each group of analytes.
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