Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction in the analysis of harmful organic compounds from environmental samples

Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction was developed in 2006 for the extraction of organic compounds from water samples. Since then, more complex matrices have been processed and the technique includes nowadays a variety of subsets. To the advantages of the technique are, for example, its rapidity, low cost and high enrichment factors. A pretreatment and analysis method was developed for the five harmful flame retardants, dechlorane plus (syn and anti) and dechloranes 602, -603 and -604 (component A) from solid environmental samples. The pretreatment method included extraction with pressurised liquid extraction and clean-up with multilayer silica and basic alumina columns. The analytes were separated and analysed with gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Electron capture negative ionisation was applied as the ionisation technique. The developed method was sensitive, resulting in acceptable recoveries and low detection limits. The chosen ionisation technique was proven to be superior over the more used electron ionisation.