Quantitation of camphechlor/toxaphene in cod-liver oil by integration of the HRGC/ECD-pattern

Summary

Quantitation of camphechlor/toxaphene in biological matrices like cod-liver oil or fish is difficult because it is a very complex mixture of alicyclic polychlorinated compounds. Furthermore, many toxaphene components are biotransformed and photodegraded and the complex mass spectral fragmentation pattern of HRGC/MSD (electron impact (EI)) cannot be used for quantitation at the μg/g-level or below. The use of several indicator-peaks after ECD-detection using the technical standard mixture for calibration does not characterize the entire pattern in a biological sample. Two averaging integration methods that are based on the entire HRGC/ECD-pattern of toxaphene compounds after separation from the PCB congeneres by adsorption chromatography on silicagel, allow a fast and accurate quantitation of the mixture in biological samples, e.g. cod-liver oil. Biological degradation does not disturb the determination because the whole pattern of the complex mixture is considered instead of only a few compounds of the parent mixture which could be degraded or not.