Stability of toluene and reduction of acetone to 2-propanol in homogenates of the human liver, brain and lungs

Abstract The homogenates of the livers, lungs and brains collected from five different cadavers were placed in the desiccator filled with vapours of rubber glue solvents and the concentrations of toluene, acetone and 2-propanol were determined during the 28-day storage at +25, +4 and −20 °C. It was demonstrated that only freezing of the material stabilised the initial concentration of these three xenobiotics while cooling to +4 °C resulted in limited conversion of acetone to 2-propanol and additionally reduced the biodegradation of toluene in the brain homogenates. Moreover, it was showed that at +25 °C the loss of acetone was almost equimolarly balanced by the 2-propanol increase, which allowed to estimate the initial concentration of acetone with the mean error of about 10%.