Efficient PFAS detection in water associated with ice rinks: on-line SPE and LC-QTOF mass spectrometry for targeted and suspect screening in a single run

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent environmental contaminants posing risks to ecological and human health. Traditional methods for PFAS analysis typically involve labour-intensive sample preparation that can be time-consuming and prone to contamination. In this study, a high-throughput approach for PFAS analysis in ice rink water was evaluated using on-line solid-phase extraction (SPE) coupled with liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF MS). A 1500 µL sample was processed with an optimised SPE protocol to pre-concentrate and purify PFAS, resulting in method detection limits between 0.3 and 3.7 ng L ^− 1 , with recovery within the acceptable range of 70–130%. Precision metrics showed that repeatability and intermediate precision (expressed as relative standard deviations) were well below 20%. In addition, this approach facilitates rapid suspect screening, using the same full-scan MS data. The method was applied to various ice rink water matrices, including source water ( n  = 9), reverse osmosis treated water ( n  = 6), ice melt water ( n  = 5), and surface water ( n  = 3). The use of on-line SPE not only reduces sample preparation time and workload but also enables cartridge reusability, thus lowering costs and minimising plastic waste. Moreover, the reduction of sample handling minimises the loss of analytes and risk of contamination. This work demonstrates an effective high-throughput method for PFAS analysis in ice rink water with potential to be applied to other environmental water samples, supporting more sustainable laboratory practices.