ORIGINAL RESEARCH Determination of MTBE in drinking water using corona discharge ion mobility spectrometry Seyed Mohammad Seyed Khademi 1 & Mahmoud Tabrizchi 2 & Ursula Telgheder 1 & Younes Valadbeigi 3 & Vahideh Ilbeigi 4 Received: 2 February 2017 /Revised: 7 April 2017 /Accepted: 11 April 2017 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017 Abstract Methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) is an organic com- pound which is used as a gasoline additive. Contamination of ground and surface water can occur due to large scale use of MTBE and its high solubility in water. According to United State Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), MTBE is a possible human carcinogen at high doses and its detection and measurement in the water is important as concerned about human health. In this work, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) equipped with a corona discharge ionization source was used for determi- nation of MTBE in drinking water. Both pure and aqueous solu- tions of MTBE were studied and their ion mobility spectra were obtained at different temperatures. Using a calibration curve for detection of MTBE in drinking water, a detection limit (LOD) of 1 mg/L was obtained by IMS. This work proved that, IMS with corona discharge can be used for fast and direct detection of MTBE in water sample without any sample preparation. Keywords MTBE . IMS . Corona discharge . Drinking water Introduction Methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) belongs to the ether class of organic compounds. It is added to gasoline as an anti- knocking agent [1, 2]. Due to serious environmental contam- ination and human carcinogenicity, detection and determina- tion of MTBE in drinking water is very important. Worldwide consumption of MTBE is high so that its reported consump- tion in Germany has been approximately 0.45–0.5 million tons in 1997 [3]. Large scale use of MTBE together with its extreme solubility in water, have resulted in contamination of soils, ground and surface waters. Based on World Health Organization (WHO) guideline, the acceptable value of MTBE in drinking water to avoid taste, odor or health risk is 15 μg/L [1]. There are two concerns regarding MTBE from the public health point of view: risk to human health and odor or taste problems in drinking water. These issues require pe- riodically analysis of MTBE and its monitoring in environ- mental samples [4]. MTBE does not respond to chemical and biological degradation in water. However, it is susceptible to photo-oxidation in the environment such as surface water, with half - life from a few days in the open air to over ten years in groundwater [5, 6]. There are many analytical methods for detection of MTBE in water. Two EPA 502.2 and 524.2 standard methods are cer- tified for determination of MTBE in drinking water [3]. The first method utilizes purge and trap (P&T) capillary GC with photo ionization detectors (PIDs) or electrolytic conductivity * Mahmoud Tabrizchi m-tabriz@cc.iut.ac.ir Seyed Mohammad Seyed Khademi seidkhademi@gmail.com Ursula Telgheder Ursula.telgheder@uni.due.de Younes Valadbeigi y.valadbeigi@yahoo.com Vahideh Ilbeigi Toftech.ir@gmail.com 1 Department of Instrumental Analytical Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen, University Street 5, 45141 Essen, Germany 2 Department of Chemistry, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan 84156-83111, Iran 3 Department of Chemistry, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran 4 TOF Tech. Pars Co, Isfahan Science and Technology Town, Isfahan 84156-83155, Iran Int. J. Ion Mobil. Spec. DOI 10.1007/s12127-017-0217-8