Results of collaborative interlaboratory study to estimate the performance characteristics of the gas chromatographic method for determination of di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate in water

Abstract

Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) is widely spread in the environment arising from anthropogenic sources rather than from natural ones. DEHP is a highly lipophilic, moderately persistent and presents a high degree of accumulation in a variety of aquatic intervertebrates, fish and amphibians. Due to its carcinogenic character DEHP was included in the list of priority dangerous substances (Directive no 76/464/CEE transposed into HG 351/2005). In order to ensure the ecological security by controlling the concentrations of this pollutant in water it was developed a gas chromatographic method after extraction in hexane at pH = 3. The estimation of the performance characteristics of the method was performed by a collaborative inter laboratory study. each participant laboratory has analysed a set of fie water samples with di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate in different levels of concentration. The results obtained after the statistic processing of the experimental data showed that the standard deviations of repeatability and reproducibility are lying in the normal domains for a chromatographic method. Consequently, the proposed method can be used by any environmental laboratory which performs the control of the level of pollution with this priority dangerous substance.