A study was conducted on a stretch of Tigris river crossing Baghdad city to determine the concentration of some chlorophenols pollutants. Aqueous samples were preliminary enriched about 500 times and the chlorophenols have determined using high performance liquid chromatography HPLC. Limits of detection LOD were (0.007-0.012 mg L(-1)), relative standard deviations RSD% were 2.4%-5.59% and relative recoveries were 51.06%-104.07%. The existence of chlorophenols in Tigris river was in the range 0.023-4.596 mg L(-1). The developed method suggested in this study can be applied for routine analysis and monitoring of chlorinated phenols in environmental aqueous samples.

A method was developed that offers a rapid, simple and accurate technique for the determination of chlorophenols at trace levels in aqueous samples with very limited volumes of organic solvents. These compounds were acetylated, then preliminarily extracted with n-hexane. The enriched chlorophenols were directly analyzed using gas chromatography with an electron-capture detector. The detection limits were in the range of 0.001-0.005 mg/L, except for 2-chlorophenol, which was always above 0.013 mg/L. Relative standard deviation for the spiked water samples ranged from 2.2 to 6.1%, while relative recoveries were in the range of 67.1 to 101.3%.