Abstract
A gas chromatographic-electron capture detection method for determining the concentration of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as Aroclor 1254 (AR 1254) in serum was evaluated through a 2-phase collaborative study. In Phase I, each collaborator's lot of Woelm silica gel (70-150 mesh) was evaluated for elution and recovery of AR 1254, which had been added in vitro at 25 ng/mL to a serum extract. In Phase II, each collaborator analyzed a series of bovine serum samples that contained the following: (1) in vitro-spiked AR 1254; (2) in vivo AR 1254 and 8 in vitro-spiked chlorinated hydrocarbons; (3) in vivo AR 1254 only; (4) 8 in vitro-spiked chlorinated hydrocarbons only; and (5) neither AR 1254 nor chlorinated hydrocarbons above the detection limit of the method. In Phase I, the average recovery of AR 1254 from silica gel for the 6 collaborators was 87.9 ± 15.44% (mean ± 1 SD; N = 18; range = 52.3-105.8%). In Phase II, the analysis of in vitro spikes of AR 1254 in serum at 8.58,16.8, 41.8, and 84.3 ppb gave mean (X) interlaboratory recoveries of 89.0, 83.3, 79.4, and 76.9%, respectively, with within-laboratory (repeatability) relative standard deviations (RSDr) of 18.8, 20.5, 10.2, and 14.1%, respectively, and among-laboratory (reproducibility) relative standard deviations (RSDR) of 21.5, 21.1, 14.6, and 20.8%, respectively. The determination of in vivo AR 1254 in samples containing approximately 10, 25, 50, and 100 ng/mL of AR 1254 resulted in interlaboratory means of 10,22,39, and 79 ng/mL, respectively, with RSDr = 6.7,9.7,6.4, and 5.8%, respectively, and RSDR = 20.6,16.0, 10.9, and 10.3%, respectively. The precision of the method for incurred AR 1254 showed a maximum RSDr of less than 10% and a maximum RSDR of less than 21% for a concentration range of 10-100 ng/mL. The accuracy of the method as demonstrated by the mean recovery of in vitro-spiked AR 1254 over a concentration range of 8.58-84.3 ng/mL was 82.2%. The method has been approved interim official first action.
Multicomponent Determination of Chlorinated Hydrocarbons Using a Reaction-based Chemical Sensor. Part 2. Chemical Speciation Using Multivariate Curve Resolution