Ultra trace level determinations of acrylamide in surface and drinking water by GC – MS after derivatization with xanthydrol

A sensitive GC–MS method has been established for the determination of acrylamide in surface and drinking water based on derivatization with xanthydrol. Deuterated acrylamide (acrylamide‐d₃) was chosen as the internal standard for analyzing the water sample. The derivatization of acrylamide was performed directly in water, and the best reaction conditions (xanthydrol of 1.6 mM, HCl concentration of 0.05 M, reaction for 30 min at ambient temperature) were established by variation of parameters. Under the established conditions, the detection and quantification limits were 3.0 and 9.7 ng/L, respectively, and the interday RSD was less than 8% at concentrations of 20 and 100 ng/L.