Use of Carbon-13 Labelled Dioxins Mixture for Analysis of Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-Dioxins in Environmental Samples by GC-MS

Abstract

Abstract Positive identification and quantitation of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD) in complicated environmental samples is described using a C-13 labelled dioxin mixture as an internal reference standard. Environmental samples are spiked with the C-13 labelled dioxin mixture and monitored for labelled and unlabelled dioxins using GC-MS in the electron impact selected ion monitoring (EISIM) mode. The C-13 labelled dioxin mixture and a municipal solid waste (MSW) incinerator fly ash extract show the same number of isomers in each tetra to octa-chlorodioxin congener groups. Quantitation of the C-13 labelled dioxin mixture was carried out using a reference standard mixture of unlabelled dioxins consisting of at least one isomer for each congener group. The C-13 labelled dioxin standard is highly useful for the determination of retention windows for tetra- to octa-chlorodioxins, identification of dioxins in each congener group, and calculation of the recovery of dioxins in samples that require exten...