SPME Analysis of PBBs

Keywords PBBs PBDEs headspace SPME GC-MS/MS quantitation Introduction 

Polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) and PBDEs are among the most widely used flame retardants with a widely distributed contamination in the environment causing a high risk or subsequent accumulation in food and feedstuff. Although typically the highly brominated congeners are applied in flame retardants, the lower brominated species are found more often in environmental samples (de Boer et al., 2001). 

The mass spectrometric detection in this application is achieved by MS/MS using an ion trap mass spectrometer providing excellent selectivity and sensitivity for trace-level quantitation in environmental water samples. Alternatively a triple quadrupole system can be employed using a similar setup. Highest selectivity and lowest determination levels have been achieved also by using high-resolution mass spectrometer (De Boer et al, 2001 Krumwiede, 2006). 

Sample preparation SPME 10 mL of a filtered aqueous sample are filled in 22 mL headspace vials, sealed with Teflon faced septum, equilibrated at 100 °C for 5 min 

LOD have been determined with triplicates measurements as given in Table 4.54. The recovery experiments have been performed with three different types of blank matrix samples including tap water, effluent and influent waste waters from  

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