Trace analysis of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxines, dibenzofurans and related compounds in environmental matrices

Abstract: In this thesis sample extraction, clean up procedures and quantitative and qualitative analysis of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans and related compounds are discussed, as well as aspects on the sampling of some complex environmental matrices.The matrices are mostly from the aquatic environment but other samples are also dealt with, such as urban and remote air samples, samples from environments with heavy automobile traffic and samples from one municipal incinerator, waste water treatment plants etc.The samples from the aquatic environment represent both heavily contaminated matrices such as settling particulate matter from areas off various industries and in central Stockholm, and complex biological matrices such as bivalves, fish and birds.The thesis describes the different steps of the cleaning up procedure in detail. New automated methods for handling complicated samples are further discussed. A new method which was used for most of the samples prepares all the fractions for analysis on high resolution GC, medium resolution MS and GC-mass selective detector.Another central part of the work in this thesis is the aim to analyse as many as possible of the components of interest in the same sample. This gives more precise answers to the questions asked, reduces the number of samples and last but not least, saves time. The essence of this method is a HPLC-method which uses an amino column for fractionation of the sample according to the aromaticity, in combination with a GCP-column which has high selectivity for aromatic and related compounds. The fractions are collected both using a heart-cutting mode and a back-flushing technique.