Chlorinated derivatives of dibenzo-p-dioxin and related compounds for use as reference compounds in method development and environmental toxicology

Analytical reference standards are not readily available for many of the chlorinated aromatic compounds that have been identified as environmental contaminants. They used sulfuryl chloride preparations to chlorinate aromatic compounds thereby obtaining the congeners needed as reference standards for gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analyses. They used commercially available vialed reagents and small vessels (reaction vials) for the production of milligram quantities of the toxicants. With biphenyl, dibenzofuran, and dibenzo-p-dioxin, the major products were polychloro derivatives of the respective starting material. With biphenylene and pyrene, polychloro-substitution products and addition products were also obtained. Polar constituents of the reaction mixtures were removed on silica gel, and the products were separated by high-performance liquid chromatography and identified by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry, and infrared spectrometry.