Bleeding Evaluation of Different SPE Cartridges on Clean-Up of Atrazine From Aqueous Samples Containing Organic Matter

Abstract

Bleeding of the SPE column, resulting in sample contamination, is not often a focus of attention. However, such problems can be relevant in sample purification procedures. In this work SPE method was optimized in order to clean up an atrazine soil aqueous solution, which is usually needed to quantify this pollutant to follow its sorption into soils. During this optimization a sorbent bleeding was witnessed, resulting in sample contamination. This unexpected event led us to the bleeding evaluation of different SPE cartridges commonly used in analytical chemistry laboratory experimental procedures. Using the same conditioning and elution protocol in five different commercial SPE cartridges, only the Oasis cartridge did not present any sorbent leaching and subsequent eluate contamination.