Abstract
A simple and rapid headspace method for gas chromatographic determination of dichloroacetic acid (DCAA) and
trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) in drinking water was developed. Acidic methanol esterification followed by a headspace
technique using a capillary column gas chromatograph (GC) equipped with an electron capture detector (ECD) was
applied to determine the levels of DCAA and TCAA in drinking water. The major advantages of this method are the use
of acidic methanol as the derivatization agent instead of the hazardous diazomethane, and esterification is carried out in
water instead of organic solvent. DCAA and TCAA methyl esters produced in the reaction were determined directly by a
headspace GC/ECD method. The linear correlation coefficients at concentrations ranging from 0 to 60 mg/L were 0.992
and 0.996 for DCAA and TCAA, respectively. The relative standard deviations (RSD, %) for the determination of
DCAA and TCAA in drinking water were 15 and 21.3%, respectively (n ¼ 3). The detection limits of this method were 3
and 0.5 mg/L for DCAA and TCAA, respectively, and the recovery was 68–103.2% for DCAA and TCAA.
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