Determination of chloroacetic acids in water by capillary zone electrophoresis with field-amplified sample injection

A simple and sensitive method has been developed for the determination of chloroacetic acids and acetic acid in water using capillary zone electrophoresis under modified electroosmotic flow with indirect UV detection. Potassium hydrogen phthalate at pH 5.40 was used as background electrolyte (BGE), and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide was used as electroosmotic flow modifier. Field-amplified sample injection (FASI) method was used to enhance the sensitivity. Results showed that the limit of detection for these analytes was enhanced more than 15-fold and the repeatabilities were good with relative standard deviations (RSDs %) of migration time and corrected peak areas being below 0.33%, 4.45% (intra-day) and 0.87%, 9.67% (inter-day), respectively. An off-line liquid–liquid extraction (LLE) process with methyl tert-butyl ether was carried out to detect these compounds in water samples. The dissociation constants of acetic acid and monochloroacetic acid (MCA) were determined with two methods and the results obtained were consistent with the reference values.