Trace identification of endocrine-disrupting bisphenol A in drinking water by solid-phase extraction and ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Bisphenol A (BPA) has been recognized as an endocrine disruptor, found in numerous products for instance water bottles, food cans and baby bottles. In this investigation, an improved method based on solid-phase extraction (SPE) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) was optimized for the extraction and identification of BPA in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and glass bottled drinking water samples of diverse trademarks and origin. The extraction of BPA was carried out using Bond-Elut-C18 SPE cartridge without any further purification of the sample extracts. Under the most favorable extraction parameters, the system has revealed excellent linearity with correlation coefficient (R2 > 0.999), limit of detection (0.01 µg/L), limit of quantification (0.04 µg/L) and precision in terms of intra- and inter-day, providing relative standard deviation (RSD%) values <1% (n = 5) and <3% (n = 5), respectively. The optimized system was applied for the analysis of BPA in drinking water samples, which showed that PET bottled samples contain lower amounts of BPA ranged from 0.29 µg/L to 24.88 µg/L, whereas glass bottled samples contain higher amounts of BPA ranged from 4.34 µg/L to 41.19 µg/L. The adequate recovery values were obtained between 96.81% and 99.77% in both type of samples.