Determination of persistent organic pollutant, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, in sediment samples from Potrerillos reservoir, Mendoza, Argentina

LANA, N.B.; BERTON, P. ; ATENCIO, A. G; LEÓN, J. ; NÉSTOR F. CIOCCO; JORGELINA C. ALTAMIRANO

Malargüe, Mendoza

Encuentro; ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL ICES 6; 2010

ICES

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) has gradually come to perceive brominated flame retardants (BFRs) as an international policy target. Despite the comprehensive international environmental legislation frame work on POPs, there is scarce information about BFRs in Argentinean environment. This paper reports the monitoring program of four PBDE congeners (BDE-47, BDE-99, BDE-100 and BDE-153) in sediment samples of Potrerillos reservoir, Mendoza. For such purpose, a novel simple, fast and efficient environmentally friendly analytical technique was developed. It was based on dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction by using solidification of floating organic droplet technique combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (DLLME-SFO-GC-MS/MS). The study and optimization of the DLLME-SFO procedure was carried out through a multivariate approach by using 2k-1 factorial and response-surface designs. The quantification of PBDEs by GC-MS/MS was accomplished by standards addition method. The limits of detection (LODs) were 0.03 ng g-1, 0.04 ng g-1, 0.05 ng g-1 and 0.07 ng g-1 for BDE-47, BDE-100, BDE-99 y BDE-153, respectively.  The precision of DLLME-SFO-GC-MS/MS evaluated over five replicate, leading RSDs values <9.2 %. The calibration graph was linear with a correlation coefficient of 0.9957 within the concentration range: 0.08?1000 ng g-1 for BDE-47, 0.10?1000 ng g-1 for BDE-100, 0.11?1000 ng g-1 BDE-99 and 0.2?1000 ng g-1 for BDE-153. This is the first study that reports the presence of PBDEs in sediment from Potrerillos reservoir. The PBDEs concentration found in the analyzed sediments samples were lower than the concentration range reported in open literature. The determination of these pollutants in Argentine constitutes an important contribution in environmental matter.