Capillary liquid chromatography (cLC) hyphenated with tandem mass spectrometry (MS-MS) was used to separate and quantitate trace concentrations of five estrogens in aqueous samples. New C-18-based sorption materials bound to the silica support by monomeric and polymeric mechanisms were compared and tested for solid-phase extraction (SPE) of selected analytes with respect to optimization of their preconcentration yield.
Application of an endcapped, monomer-bound preconcentration Discovery DSC-18Lt column under the optimized conditions provides yields in the range from 95 to 100% with a high repeatability (n =3, RSD {= 7.2%).