Simultaneous determination of halogenated contaminants (PCBs and PCNs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in biota integrated into a single method

In this study, a novel analytical approach for the simultaneous determination of 127 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), together with 6 polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs) and 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) was developed and validated. The number of environmental contaminants which undergo legislation continues to increase, fostering the development and validation of sensitive, selective, fast and inexpensive analytical methods. The determination of such analytes often requires long and expensive procedures for each class of compounds. This does not allow the rapid and fast analysis of large quantity of samples for food safety screening purposes. The aim of this study was to develop a method for the simultaneous determination of PCBs, PCNs and PAHs in biological samples (bivalves tissues) from extraction to instrumental analysis. The method uses pressurized liquid extraction (PLE), gel permeation chromatography (GPC) for lipid fraction removal, automatic preparative liquid chromatography for the clean-up and a single run in HRGC-LRMS. We integrate analyses of these three groups of POPs into a single analytical protocol from sampling to injection. Not only does this method a lower amount of sample and less time, but it also allows one to increase the sample throughput. The use of one single pre-analytical method allows one to simplify the procedures and save time, while the single run in GC-MS enables the collection of more data simultaneously and in less time (about 75 minutes for 149 analytes) compared to separate analyses.