Simultaneous pressurized liquid extraction and clean-up for the analysis of polybrominated biphenyls by gas chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

This paper describes a fast and simple pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) method combined with gas chromatography coupled to ion trap tandem mass spectrometry (GC–ITMS-MS) for the determination of polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) in fish samples. The method is based on a simultaneous extraction/clean-up step to reduce analysis time and solvent consumption. The effect of several PLE operating conditions, such as solvent type, extraction temperature and time, number of cycles, and lipid retainer, was optimized to obtain maximum recovery of the analytes with the minimum presence of matrix-interfering compounds. The best conditions were obtained at 100 °C with n-hexane using 15 g of silica modified with sulphuric acid (44%, w/w) as sorbent for lipid removal. Quality parameters of the GC–ITMS-MS method were established, achieving good linearity (r > 0.998), between 1 and 500 ng ml−1, and low instrumental limits of detection (0.14–0.76 pg injected). For the whole method, limits of detection ranging from 0.03 to 0.16 ng g−1 wet weight and good precision (RSD < 16%) were obtained.