Open Access

Ute Dorgerloh, Roland Becker, Finnian Freeling, Marco Scheurer, Emine Gökçe, Katrin Strack, Thomas Sommerfeld, Andreas Sauer, Jonas Schneider, Christoph Härtel, Vassil Valkov, Lukas Moser, Sabine Geiß, Sabine Junginger, Linda Schlittenbauer, Elke Suess, Katinka Ruth

• The concentration of trifluoroacetic acid in surface and groundwaters and drinking water is subject of increasing concern. Since there is no standardised procedure available, German standardisation body DIN has initiated the first draft standard using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) after direct injection for the concentration range between ≥ 0.1 and 3 µg/L. Herein, the interlaboratory comparison as final validation step involving 12 expert laboratories from Germany and Switzerland is described. Two groundwaters, two surface waters, a drinking water, a rainwater, and two fortified groundwater samples displayed relative repeatability standard deviations between 3 and 7% and relative reproducibility standard deviation between 6 and 20% and were included in the draft standard DIN 38407-53.