Kepone (chlordecone) is a persistent organic pollutant and may degrade to kepone alcohol. A fast and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS) method using multiple reaction monitoring is reported for the accurate determination of kepone and kepone alcohol.

Water and soil were enriched by liquid-liquid extraction and liquid-solid extraction. Good linearity was obtained between 1 and 100ng/mL with r(2)=0.997 for kepone and 30 and 200ng/mL with r(2)=0.996 for kepone alcohol.

The recovery was in the range of 70% to 90%. This approach provided higher sensitivity compared to gas chromatography methods and avoided the formation of an artifact methanolic hemiketal.