You are here:
PROTOCOL FOR THE DETERMINATION OF SELECTED NEUTRAL AND ACIDIC SEMIVOLATILE ORGANIC CONTAMINANTS IN FISH TISSUE.
Impact/Purpose:
Development of extraction and subsequent cleanup methods to aid in determination of selected neutral and acidic semivolatile organic contaminants in fish tissue.
Description:
During a survey of contaminants in over 300 fish tissue samples from the Columbia River Basin which runs through the states of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, there was interest in widening the normal scope of organic compounds determined. In the analyte category amenable to GC-MS analysis, of particular interest were free phenolics and low levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Finely ground and homogenized fish tissue samples were soxhlet extracted. Phenolics in the extracts were acetylated and the derivatized extract containing the acetates and neutral semivolatiles were cleaned up with silica gel and size-exclusion column chromatography. These semivolatile organics were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The method was evaluated for recovery and precision of selected analytes during the analysis of over 300 fish tissue samples of varying species in support of contaminant determination in fish tissue from the Columbia/Snake River watershed.