A Fully Automated Liquid-Liquid Extraction for 2-Methylisoborneol and Geosmin in Water

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Geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol (MIB) are problematic taste and odour compounds for the water industry, resulting in a musty aroma, that is detectable by consumers at extremely low levels. Analysis traditionally involves manual liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) techniques. This application note describes a fully automated LLE solution using the QuickMix and CF200 options available for the GERSTEL MultiPurpose Sampler (MPS). Linearity from 2-100 ng/L and repeatability, at LOQ, for both compounds was assessed on an Agilent 5977B GC-MS. R² greater than 0.999 and an RSD (n=10), at 2 ng/L, of less than 10% was achieved for both compounds. Additionally, the use of the PrepAhead makes the analysis highly efficient and the significantly reduced solvent volumes lead to solvent use of 1% of the manual extraction method. The automation of this analysis could potentially save water testing laboratories time and money through reduced sample size (transport and storage), solvent consumption, and potential repeat analysis. Moreover, rapid turnaround of samples is very important in the industry to enable responsive treatment by water companies.

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