Using a membrane technique (SPM) for high fat food sample preparation in the determination of chlorinated persistent organic pollutants by a GC/ECD method

This paper focuses upon the use of semipermeable membranes (SPM) as a clean-up method for the determination of 4,4′-DDD, 4,4′-DDE, 4,4′-DDT, Aldrin, Dieldrin, Isodrin, Lindane (γ -HCH), 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene (1,2,4-TCB), 1,2,3-trichlorobenzene (1,2,3-TCB), 1,2,3,4-tetrachlorobenzene (1,2,3,4-TCB), 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene (1,2,4,5-TCB), Pentachlorobenzene (PeCBz), Hexachlorobenzene (HCB), and Hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD) in high fat food samples. Pork fat, beef fat, butter, egg yolks and chocolate were all used as high fat food samples. The procedure consists of three steps: the first is dialysis in an SPM tube, using n-hexane as an external solvent. The second step is a clean-up procedure using a silica gel column, and the third step is GC/ECD analysis. This experiment shows that recovery values obtained for individual compounds were in the range of 55–100%. The conclusion drawn is that the SPM technique is an efficient method of preparation of high fat food samples for the determination of POPs by GC/ECD methods.