An inert gas is bubbled through a 5 mL water sample contained in a specially-designed purging chamber at ambient temperature. The purgeables are efficiently transferred from the aqueous phase to the vapor phase. The vapor is swept through a sorbent trap where the purgeables are trapped. After purging is completed, the trap is heated and backflushed with the inert gas to desorb the purgeables onto a gas chromatographic column. The gas chromatograph is temperature programmed to separate the purgeables which are then detected with a mass spectrometer
