TY - JOUR
T1 - Fingerprinting polychlorinated biphenyls in environmental samples using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with time-of-flight mass spectrometry
AU - Megson, David
AU - Kalin, Robert
AU - Worsfold, Paul J.
AU - Gauchotte-Lindsay, Caroline
AU - Patterson, Donald G.
AU - Lohan, Maeve C.
AU - Comber, Sean
AU - Brown, Thomas A.
AU - O'Sullivan, Gwen
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank; Chris Gallagher and Ann Tanderitispole (University of Strathclyde) for their assistance and hard work running the samples and standards, Christopher Hopley (LGC) for kindly donating the nine native congener mix solutions 209 PCB solutions, Russell Haworth (Thames Restek), Jack Cochran (Restek) and Alec Kettle (Leco) for their useful advice and support with the project. The Scottish Funding Council and EPSRC Grant GR/T25200/01 for funding associated with the University of Strathclyde Laboratory. Finally David Megson would like to thank Plymouth University for funding this project as part of his PhD research.
PY - 2013/11/29
Y1 - 2013/11/29
N2 - A GC × GC-TOFMS installed with a Rtx-PCB (60. m × 0.18. mm × 0.18. μm) in the first dimension and Rxi-17 (1.5. m × 0.1. mm × 0.1. μm) column in the second dimension was used to separate 188 out of 209 congeners. A further 12 congeners were identified through additional data processing resulting in the identification of a total of 200 congeners. However, caution is advised if these 12 congeners were to be used in quantitative assessments. The remaining 9 co-eluting congeners were three doublets (CB65. +. CB62, CB160. +. CB163 and CB201. +. CB204) and one triplet (CB20. +. CB21. +. CB33). This method was tested on five Aroclors and resulted in the separation of all congeners present in the heavier Aroclor mixtures A1254 and A1260. The suitability of this method for applications in biological matrices was demonstrated on extracted whiting and guillemot liver samples which resulted in the identification of 137 individual PCBs in the whiting liver sample and 120 in the guillemot sample. Fingerprinting was able to show clear differences in the PCB signature of the two animals. This highlights the potential of this method for PCB fingerprinting in environmental forensics studies and other assessments that require congener specific analysis.
AB - A GC × GC-TOFMS installed with a Rtx-PCB (60. m × 0.18. mm × 0.18. μm) in the first dimension and Rxi-17 (1.5. m × 0.1. mm × 0.1. μm) column in the second dimension was used to separate 188 out of 209 congeners. A further 12 congeners were identified through additional data processing resulting in the identification of a total of 200 congeners. However, caution is advised if these 12 congeners were to be used in quantitative assessments. The remaining 9 co-eluting congeners were three doublets (CB65. +. CB62, CB160. +. CB163 and CB201. +. CB204) and one triplet (CB20. +. CB21. +. CB33). This method was tested on five Aroclors and resulted in the separation of all congeners present in the heavier Aroclor mixtures A1254 and A1260. The suitability of this method for applications in biological matrices was demonstrated on extracted whiting and guillemot liver samples which resulted in the identification of 137 individual PCBs in the whiting liver sample and 120 in the guillemot sample. Fingerprinting was able to show clear differences in the PCB signature of the two animals. This highlights the potential of this method for PCB fingerprinting in environmental forensics studies and other assessments that require congener specific analysis.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.chroma.2013.10.016
DO - 10.1016/j.chroma.2013.10.016
M3 - Article
C2 - 24354008
AN - SCOPUS:84887134377
VL - 1318
SP - 276
EP - 283
JO - Journal of Chromatography A
JF - Journal of Chromatography A
SN - 0021-9673
ER -