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Determination of Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Soil and Sediment by Selective Pressurized Liquid Extraction with Immunochemical Detection
Citation:
VanEmon, J., J. Chuang, A. Bronshtein, AND M. Altstein. Determination of Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Soil and Sediment by Selective Pressurized Liquid Extraction with Immunochemical Detection. SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT. Elsevier BV, AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, 463:326-333, (2013).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL′s) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA′s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD′s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA′s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
A selective liquid pressurized extraction (SPLE) method was developed as a streamlined sample preparation/cleanup procedure for determining Aroclors and coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in soil and sediment matrices. The SPLE method was coupled with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for a novel and effective analytical approach for environmental monitoring and human exposure assessment studies. Sediment or soil samples were extracted with alumina, 10% silver nitrate in silica, and sulfuric acid impregnated silica (acidic silica) with dichloromethane (DCM) at 100ºC and 2000 psi. The SPLE offered simultaneous extraction and cleanup of the PCBs and Aroclors and a post-extraction cleanup step was not required prior to ELISA. Two ELISA methods with different specificities: (1) an Aroclor ELISA and (2) a coplanar PCB ELISA were evaluated. The Aroclor ELISA utilized a polyclonal (AC-3) antibody (Ab) with Aroclor 1254 as the calibrant and a commercial coplanar PCB ELISA kit used a rabbit anti-coplanar PCB Ab with PCB-126 as the calibrant. Recoveries of Aroclor 1254 in the two reference soil samples were 92±2 % and 106±5 % by off line coupling of SPLE with the Aroclor ELISA. The average recovery of Aroclor 1254 in spiked soil and sediment samples was 92±17%. Quantitative recoveries of coplanar PCBs (107-117%) in the spiked soil and sediment samples were obtained with the combined SPLE/ELISA format. The estimated method detection limit was 10 ng g-1 for Aroclor 1254 and 125 pg g-1 for PCB-126. Estimated sample throughput for the SPLE-ELISA was about twice that of the stepwise extraction/cleanup procedure necessary for gas chromatography (GC) or GC/mass spectrometry (MS) detection. ELISA derived uncorrected and corrected Aroclor 1254 levels correlated well (r = 0.9973 and 0.9996) with the total Aroclor concentrations as measured by GC for 32 soil/sediment samples from five different contaminated sites. ELISA derived PCB-126 concentrations were higher than the sums of the 12 coplanar PCBs generated by GC/MS (N=10) with a positive correlation (r = 0.9441). Results from the environmental samples indicate the SPLE-ELISA approach can be used for quantitative or qualitative analysis of PCBs in soil and sediments.
URLs/Downloads:
FINAL FINAL VANEMON CLEAN SPLE-PCB-MS.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 351.246 KB, about PDF)Science of the Total Environment
