Harmonized internal quality aspects of a multi-residue method for determination of forty-six semivolatile compounds in water by stir-bar-sorptive extraction-thermal desorption gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

Three main aspects of internal quality-internal method validation, internal quality control (IQC), and sample result uncertainty-have been established for a multi-residue method for determination of 46 organic micropollutants (pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) in water by stir-bar-sorptive extraction (SBSE) and thermal desorption (TD) coupled to capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). From data obtained with increasing time, the process mean and standard deviation were used to harmonize the internal quality statistics. The relationship between these statistics and the hydrophobicity of the compounds was evaluated.