Detecting Chlorinated Hydrocarbon Residues: Rachel Carson’s Villains

Abstract

In 1962, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring drew the public’s attention to the deleterious effects of chlorinated hydrocarbons employed as economic poisons in agriculture. However, she did not discuss how their residues could be routinely identified and quantified. In part, this was because the introduction of instruments for use in environmental analysis had only just begun, and she was probably unaware of their existence. The development of the instrumental methods began in industry, particularly at Dow and Shell, in the mid-1950s. Dow scientists, by combining mass spectrometry with gas chromatography, developed the most powerful technique, then and now, for the separation, quantitation and identification of chlorinated hydrocarbons. Shell scientists were no less innovative, particularly with the application of highly sensitive gas chromatography detectors to trace analysis. The first of these detectors, the electron capture detector, was invented by James Lovelock at the National Institute of Medical Research, North London, at the end of the 1950s. Around the same time, Dale Coulson in the USA developed his microcoulometric detector.