Determination of Persistent Organic Pollutants in Fish Tissues by Accelerated Solvent Extraction and GC-MS/MS

Advances in Monitoring Persistent, Bioaccumulating and Toxic (PBT) Compounds
Poster Presentation

Presented by C. Shevlin
Prepared by A. Kettle
Thermo Fisher Scientific, 1214 Oakmead Parkway, Sunnyvale, CA, 94085, United States


Contact Information: aaron.kettle@thermofisher.com; 916-747-8406


ABSTRACT

Aaron Kettle,1 Fabrizio Galbiati,2 , and Sara Panseri3

1Thermo Fisher Scientific, 1214 Oakmead Parkway; Sunnyvale, CA 94085, USA; aaron.kettle@thermofisher.com;
2Thermo Fisher Scientific; Reinach, Switzerland; 3University of Milan; Milan, Italy

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) belong to a broad family of synthetic organic compounds known as halogenated hydrocarbons. The capacity of the halogenated hydrocarbons to bioaccumulate in fatty tissues and biomagnify up the food chain, in combination with their resistance to degradation and their toxicity, make this class of chemicals a serious threat to environmental and human health. Due to this potential toxicity, the extraction and analysis of halogenated hydrocarbons from matrices such as fish tissue is required by the U.S. EPA. Techniques such as Soxhlet and sonication are used for the extraction of halogenated hydrocarbons from environmental samples prior to their analytical determination. These techniques are, however, very labor intensive and suffer from high solvent consumption. Accelerated solvent extraction was developed to meet the new requirements of increased throughput and reduced solvent usage in sample preparation.

The work presented in the poster demonstrates workflow methods for halogenated hydrocarbon extraction and analysis using GC-MS/MS from fish tissue. An analytical method was developed and applied to evaluate POP residues in tuna samples from different Food and Agricultural Organization areas. The method reported here is applicable for the determination of 29 halogenated hydrocarbons (6 PCBs, 16 OCPs, and 7 PBDEs). The method proved to be simple and rapid, requiring small sample sizes and minimizing solvent consumption, due to use of accelerated solvent extraction with an in-line clean up step.