Gas chromatography retention data of environmentally relevant polybrominated compounds

Abstract

Polybrominated organic compounds are ubiquitous throughout the environment. This generic term comprises several classes of brominated flame retardants (e.g., polybrominated diphenyl ethers, polybrominated biphenyls, hexabromocyclododecane, dibromopropyltribromophenyl ether, 1,2-bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy)ethane) as well as a range of marine halogenated natural products (HNPs). Here we present gas chromatography retention times and elution orders (on DB-5) of 122 polybrominated compounds that may be found in food and environmental samples. Organobromine compounds in fish samples determined with gas chromatography interfaced to electron-capture negative ion mass spectrometry (GC/ECNI-MS) are discussed. The environmental relevance and important mass spectrometric features of the compounds are described as well. Our database aims to support the closer inspection and identification of peaks in gas chromatograms and to initiate dedicated screening for less frequently studied organobromines in samples.

Polyhalogenated compounds (PCBs, chlordanes, HCB and BFRs) in four polar bears (Ursus maritimus) that swam malnourished from East Greenland to Iceland

“…All samples showed peaks at the retention times of BDE 47, BDE 153 and BDE 154 (and partly BDE 99 and BDE 100). However, with the present GC setup BDE 154 co-eluted with PBB 153 (Covaci et al, 2003;McKinney et al, 2011) and BDE 153 with PBB 138 (Vetter and Rosenfelder, 2008). Evaluation of the ion abundance ratio of m/z 79 to m/z 161 revealed that the first peak in our sample mainly originated from PBB 153 while BDE 154 only played a minor role.…”

Neutral and phenolic brominated organic compounds of natural and anthropogenic origin in northeast Atlantic Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus)

“…The congeners BDE-17 and BDE-25 could not be baseline resolved by the GC/HRMS method applied, and both congeners were present only at low concentrations. The coelution of these two congeners has also been addressed by Vetter and Rosenfelder [29], indi- cating a potential problem in assessing their levels. Small amounts of BDE-25 might also influence BDE-17 concentrations performed by GC/LRMS, explaining their high ratios in some samples.…”

Improved GC/ECNI-MS sensitivity of decabromodiphenyl ether determination on 30 m columns by increasing the carrier gas flow after a modified gel permeation chromatographic cleanup protocol employing cyclohexane/ethyl acetate as eluent

“…BDE-15 was from Alfa Aesar (Karlsruhe, Germany) and technical 1,2,5,6,9,10-hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) was from Dr. Ehrenstorfer (Augsburg, Germany). The origin of natural halogenated products standards ( 10)) has been described in [30].…”

“…Instead, we increased the carrier gas flow at the end of the GC run. Using a standard constant flow rate of 1.2 mL min À1 in combination with a moderate GC oven program on the 30 m column [30], all Br 8 -Br 10 DEs eluted during the final isothermal phase at 300 C. Under these conditions, sharp peaks were obtained up to Br 8 DEs while the signals of Br 9 DEs and BDE-209 were broad and comparably small. We attempted to reduce this obvious diffusion effect by raising the carrier gas flow after the last Br 8 (see Section 2.2).…”

“…(Figure 2a, b), the limitations of the short column became apparent when further organobromine compounds were tested, which elute in the retention range of Br 5 DEs [30]. For instance, 2,2 0 -diMeO-BB-80 (BC-1) and 5,5 0 -dichloro-1,1 0 dimethyl-3,3 0 ,4,4 0 -tetrabromo-2,2 0 -bipyrrole (BC-10) could only be resolved on the 30 m column (Figure 2c, d).…”