CHOICE OF GC COLUMN PHASE FOR ANALYSIS OF TOXIC PCBS

The gas chromatographic (GC) separation of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from potentially interfering PCB congeners was compared for eight commercially available fused silica capillary columns with different stationary phases varying from highly non-polar to very polar. No single phase was able to separate all toxic congeners from co-eluting congeners. The best overall performance was found for the non-polar dimethyl siloxane phase. The best choice for the analysis of the highly toxic planar PCBs (IUPAC# 77, 126 and 169) was a series combination of 5% diphenyl dimethyl siloxane and 1,2-dicarba-closo-dodecaborane dimethyl siloxane.