Determination of dissolved and particle-bound PCB congeners at ultra-trace concentrations in water

Abstract

Adsorption of 10 PCB congeners in aqueous solutions on glass-fibre filters taken from different boxes but of the same type were not significantly different. The standard deviations using filters from the same box were below 10% at concentration levels of 4.1 ng L−1. At this level, the adsorption of dissolved PCB at the filters was in the range of 5–20% depending on the congener. This led to a procedure for determination of dissolved and particle-bound congener in authentic landfill leachate, which included correction for adsorption losses. The procedure was based on filtration through glass-fibre filters, followed by trapping of the PCB in the eluate on solid-phase extraction (SPE) disks. After separate supercritical fluid (SFE) extractions, with carbon dioxide, of the filters as well as of the SPE disks, the extracts were analysed on a two-column capillary GC-ECD system. Corrections for congener adsorption on glass-fibre filters were made, from which corrected distribution constants between particle-bound and dissolved PCB congener in the water phase could be obtained for authentic landfill leachate. These values (104–105) agreed well with those obtained by others.