Bond Elut PCB method?

Hi,

I'm about to get some PCB samples that I'll need to extract and run on gcms. I currently have a method for the GC, but I was looking into the extraction method and noticed that agilent has a Bond Elut PCB cartridge.  The site says that you can extract with only one solvent but doesn't give a method on what to use or procedure. There are two matrices, a filter and the water that the filter extracted from, and my standards are in iso-octane.  Does anyone have a good method on how to extract these?  I cannot do a Soxhlet extraction and was hoping for a SPE or Liquid/Liquid.  Are these Bond Elut PCB cartridges just like the Florisil clean-up ones?

Thanks

  • HI crf,

    the method with Bond Elut PCB is described here: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-4347(01)00447-9 

    A generic method is:

    Sample preparation with Bond Elut PCB

    Extraction of PCB’s from an organic Matrix

    I.e. waste oil or a hexane extract of an aqueous sample

    Bond Elut - Cartridges: Bond Elut PCB

    Catalog number: 1210-5032

    Conditioning: apply 1 ml n-Hexane through the cartridge under light vacuum

    Extraction:

    1. Add 250 µl sample solution to the extraction column

    2. Add 1 ml n-Hexane

    Elute slowly during 5 Minutes without vacuum

    3. Add another 1 ml n-Hexane and elute the sample under gentle vacuum

    4. Add and elute 3 x 0.5 ml n-Hexane under vacuum

    5. Collect and combine the n-hexane fractions.

    Adjust the desired concentrations of the combined fractions by evaporation under nitrogen or dilution with n-hexane.

    Regards,

    Norbert

  • Hi Norbert,

    Thank you for the response.  This generic extraction you provided seems very straight forward, maybe I am missing something?  I can take my low volume water sample, spike in an IS, add it to the conditioned column, then elute into a test tube? After, I can dry it down with a TurboVap and recon with n-hexane to an appropriate volume for my gc vial?  Do I need to do a liquid-liquid extraction first to get the PCBs out of the water and into an organic solvent? I feel like I am missing something. What is the recovery rate for using these SPE cartridges? I've only extracted PCBs via epa method with a soxhlet and large volumes of water, and that way is not feasible for our lab. 

    Thank you

  • All methods used started from the generic one, but you'll have to check the scientific community for articles on the use of Bond Elut PCB for numbers/recoveries and how they tweaked their methods. The cartridge was developed to use on organic extracts from various sources, mainly for PCBs from transformer oil (DIN method).

    If used on soil the organic extracts were acetone/hexane mixtures and came from sonication of the soil in the organic mix, no Soxhlet.

    BTW it is not Florisil, it's a SCX/SI mixed bed.

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