A new method is des
cribed for determining totalgasoline-range organi
cs (TGRO) in water that
combines solid-phase mi
croextra
ction (SPME) and infrared (IR) spe
ctros
copy. In this method, the organi
c compounds are extra
ctedfrom 250-mL of water into a small square (3.2
cm × 3.2
cm × 130
![](/images/entities/mgr.gif)
m thi
ck) of Teflon PFA film. This film, aperfluoroalkoxyethylene polymer, la
cks C-H bonds andmakes it possible to quantitate the extra
cted organi
cs dire
ctlyin it via their C-H stret
ching vibrations. Three gasoline-range fuels, unleaded gasoline, aviation gas, and lighter fuel(petroleum naphtha), were
chosen to evaluate the SPME/IR pro
cedure. Preliminary experiments show that methoddete
ction limits are in the 0.5-1.5 ppm range for spikedsolutions, and pre
cision is relatively good (6-11%RSDs). Linear dynami
c ranges of
calibration extend to thewater solubility limits for all fuels studied. Finally, thepotential of this SPME/IR method for determining TGRO innatural "real world" water samples was investigated byextra
cting wastewater
contaminated with gasoline. In thispro
cedure, a
commer
cially available gas
chromatographystandard was used to
calibrate the SPME/IR method. Theresults obtained from the SPME/IR determination of theTGRO in two wastewater samples were in reasonableagreement with those obtained from standard purge-and-trap gas
chromatographi
c analysis.