This paper describes a new shape-selective, pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) procedure for extracting polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) and PCBs from food and feed samples with an integrated carbon fractionation step. Initially this was done using specially designed inserts for 34-mL cells, but subsequently, large solid cells (66 mL) were machined to increase the capacity and robustness of the system. Depending on the carbon load and extraction solvent strength, the non-ortho PCBs were recovered either with the bulk of the PCBs or with the PCDD/Fs. The former is preferable if PCDD/Fs are the targets. In most cases, however, data are required for all indicator PCBs, WHO-PCBs, and PCDD/Fs. Therefore, further efforts focused on developing, optimizing, and validating a cost- and time-efficient PLE procedure that can extract these targets, separate non-ortho PCBs and PCDD/Fs from the bulk of the PCBs, allow gravimetric fat determinations, and requires a minimum of postextraction cleanup. The performance of the resulting procedure was assessed in experiments with a fish tissue reference material. The trueness of the WHO-PCB-TEQ, PCDD/F-TEQ, and total-TEQ data were -8, -5, and -7%, respectively, and the corresponding CVs were 1.5, 0.5, and 1.3%; within the limits set by the European community for gas chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry methods for food and feed control.
The concentrations of dioxins in fish oil and fish meal were determined with accelerated solvent extraction, using a novel integrated carbon fractionation extraction cell followed by a miniturized multilayer silica column and bioanalysis on a recently-developed chemically-activated fluorescent gene expression cell bioassay. The developed method allows for simultaneous gravimetric lipid weight determination, which was shown for both matrices under study (about 100% lipid recovery of each sample). Initial results practically meet the quality criteria on screening methods for control of dioxins in food and feedstuffs laid down in the EU Commission Directives 2002/69/EC (food) and 2002/70/EC (feed). This demonstrates that the developed method can be used as a screening tool for monitoring dioxins in food and feed after some additional improvements and testing on a greater number of matrices.
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