The purpose of this study is to develop a method for separating PCBs and their interfering substances existing in airborne aerosol using mono-layer column chromatography, and determining their levels by low-resolution GC/MS. First, the fractionation behaviors of PCBs and their interfering substances in the column chromatography were investigated. As a result, 99.5% or more interfering substances could be removed by performing the column chromatography using a silica gel chemically bonded with an aminopropyl, cyanopropyl or 2, 3-dihydroxy-propoxypropyl as an adsorbent of the column chromatography (amount of adsorbent: approx. 10 g, column height: 460mm, column diameter: 8 mm, eluent: n-hexane) . The developed technique was applied to several airborne aerosol samples, and PCBs were separated from the interfering substances and both were quantified (PCB: 0.09-6.59pg m^-3, UCM hydrocarbons: 140-230ng m^-3, n-alkanes: 0.02-6.49ng m^-3) . Furthermore, the analytical data in this study were compared with those obtained by the official analytical method, revealing that there was no significant statistical difference therebetween.
Accordingly, it was shown that the fractionation treatment using mono-layer column chromatography can be applied to an analytical method for PCBs contained in the airborne aerosol samples using low-resolution GC/MS.

View full abstract