Abstract
In order to achieve the rapid analysis of PCB in insulating oil, optimization of the operating conditions of the GC-MS/NCI method, including ion source temperature, emission current, reaction gas and gas volume estimation, was carried out.
Only a dilution with n-hexane was enough in our pre-treatment process, instead of the complicated pre-treatment such as clean-up processes with column chromatography, the extraction/concentration process, etc., to analyze the samples with a level down to 0.3 mg/kg-PCB, which was less than 0.5 mg/kg-PCB, the pre-treatment criteria in the relevant Japanese law.
The correlation between our method and the official one was fairly good in terms of the test results using the samples of insulating oil containing PCB after de-chlorination treatnent.
In conclusion, we could develop the rapid PCB analysis method by using a GC-MS/NCI method.
The time for analysis could be reduced to less than 1 hour, and the virtually no wastes were produced during pretreatment procedure.
The method is suitable for routine monitoring of PCB during operation of PCB treatment plants.
