Microwave-assisted leaching of organotin compounds from sediments for speciation analysis

The behavior and stability of organotin compounds in a microwave field is discussed. An extremely rapid procedure for the separation of butyl- and phenyltin derivatives from sediments is developed. The analyte species are quantitatively leached with acetic acid in a focused microwave field during a period of 3 min. The procedure followed by capillary GC-FPD offers a detection limit of 1 ng/g (as Sn). The procedure developed was validated by the analyses of two certified reference materials : the NRCC PACS-1 and the BCR CRM 462.