Differeniation of Aroclors in environmental samples using negative ion chemical ionization (NICI) mass spectrometry

Environmental samples suspected of containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and analyzed by EPA Method 8080 frequently contain non-PCB components, such as phthalates, PAH's, or organochlorine pesticides. The presence of these interferences can often obscure the GC/ECD patterns and cause problems in differentiating the Aroclor types by visual inspection. Since Method 8080 requires the identification of Aroclor types in order to trace the sources of PCB occurrences, NICI detection was used to provide additional parameters for discriminating PCB congeners from interferences. In this study, a pattern recognition method has been developed to classify the types of Aroclors for environmental samples. A computer program written in BASIC has been implemented to facilitate Aroclor classification using the NICI ion abundance measurement for PCB congeners. NICI measurements on Aroclor standards were used as training data set to develop classification methods for environmental samples. PCB contaminated oil or soil samples were either extracted of diluted with hexane and analyzed in the same manner as the standards. This sequential classification method classified all Aroclors in the training set correctly. A set of 15 environmental samples with known Aroclor types were also correctly classified.